


An Equally Painful Loss

by Anonymouscosmos



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, It gets angsty ok, Mutual Pining, OP breaks her heart repeatedly with her obsession, feel free to send chocolate or tissues to me, i hope you are a marshmallow because this is gonna be a slow burn, i invent a lot of character backstory, separate destinies, there will be occasional art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 131,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymouscosmos/pseuds/Anonymouscosmos
Summary: Eivor the Wolf Kissed, they call her. Adopted sister to Sigurd. Drengr. The last thing you see before the cries of battle horns usher you into Hela's embrace. It is a name Eivor bears with pride. There were many other names she might have been given. Names are not always things that speak of bravery or epic battles. There is Siglunde the Stupid, for example... Or Brön the Half-Length. The joke isn't about his height.----I tippy-tap along the main storyline, but this is half a love story and half a story about Eivor, and who she is. It's a peek into her head, and I pray to the Aesir I do her justice.There are Sigurd chapters later, by enthusiastic request, so you will get to read both sides of the story. :)
Relationships: Eivor & Sigurd Styrbjornson
Comments: 137
Kudos: 186





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been puttering around with this for a month, unsure if I wanted to share it, but uh... Here is a thing I did. The couple I have broken my own heart shipping. Lord help me this game and these two have been all consuming.  
> \-----

She is nine winters. She hates her hands, slender and useless, fingers dwarfed by the large stone she struggles to balance. The hands of a child. She might be able to heft a small axe, might tell herself she is a mighty drengr, but the fantasy has no joy in it anymore. Such are games for children, and though her body might betray her with its weakness, she no longer has a child’s heart. That part of her died alongside her people. She could do nothing but watch her family die at the edge of Kjotve’s axe. _Useless, small, and weak._ She is not sure which aches more - the healing wound in her neck, the grooves cut into her skull by sharp teeth - or the agony in her chest. She cannot close her eyes. When she sleeps, dreams come. Dreams of fire and the cries of dying men, of arrows in her mother’s back and her father dying like a coward. Dreams of gleaming fangs and the shining black wings of ravens. When she cannot sleep, she comes here. She stands atop the rocky outcrop and stacks the worn stones until the turmoil in her slows to a steady drumbeat.

It is a drumbeat of war. Weak though she is, small and soft though she might be, she will not always be so. This, she dares promise herself. She will wield axe and bow and sword and shield until taut muscles cord beneath her hardened skin, and the drumbeat that echoes through her will be the last thing Kjotve hears before her axe blade splits his skull.

The stones fall. She has lost her focus and they have scattered, stark and gray beneath the moon’s watchful eye. Her throat tightens, and she feels as though she might not be able to draw another breath. Once, when she was perhaps five winters along, she crept out onto the ice despite her father’s caution. _The ice is too thin, Eivor,_ he warned the day before. _Even for a little bird like you, it will not hold beneath your weight._ She did not listen, thinking herself more clever than he. She edged out onto the ice, wondering at the world of glistening diamonds and snow-laden trees. Spring had begun to take its toll, the world slowly thawing as winter’s bite began to soften. The ice beneath her feet had a film of water over it, seeping through the seams of her soft rabbit skin slippers. She considered turning back, but the rotten ice made the choice for her - caving beneath her like ancient boards.

She would never forget the darkness, absolute and suffocating, as it closed over her head. The stars winked out above her and she was falling into an abyss. Even in the deepest of nights, Rosta always kept one candle burning for Eivor. In that moment, there were no candles. No warm hearth or her mother’s arms. Only the black depths of the river.

A hand closed about her wrist, pulled her out and onto her feet. Father, one step ahead of her mischief as he had always been, hauled her to safety. He had a rope about his waist, and others watched from the shore. He did not lecture her yet, only carried her back to the longhouse, shaking and shivering so hard her teeth sounded like the bone chimes strung about Svala’s hut. It was not until she was warm again, bundled in thick furs and cradled in Rosta’s arms, that he spoke to her in a voice so somber it made her shiver once more.

_I will not always be there to pull you from death’s maw, little bird. You must remember that, and heed my words in the future._

“No,” she says to the pile of stones before her now. “You are not here.”

She should be ashamed of him. She should hate him for falling to his knees before Kjotve, the mud upon them sealing his doom and forever shuttering the doors of Valhalla to him. But she is young, and she is weak, and try as she might she cannot hate him. She can only miss him, with an earnestness and desperation that makes her body ache despite the numbing cold of Norway.

There are soft steps behind her, and she turns to see who has interrupted her midnight vigil. It is Sigurd. He is pale beneath the cold light of the moon, his hair more silver beneath it than its true red and gold. He is fourteen, older than she, the downy beginnings of a beard gleaming on his cheeks in the moonlight. He is tall for his age, his lanky body promising to reach a great height some day. He will be a giant among men, both as a king and in stature. She envies his strength, and the advantage of time he has on her. He is closer to becoming a drengr than she is. She must pray to the gods each day for his height and breadth. He stops a few feet away from her, crouches to lessen the difference in their heights. His eyes miss nothing, roaming from the collapsed pile of stones to Eivor’s shaking hands.

“Father says you are his daughter now,” Sigurd tells her, elbows resting on his knees. “Which means… I am your brother. This pleases me. Does it… please you?”

He is being kind to her. He has been nothing but gentle with her since his father took her in, gave her shelter and a roaring hearth and food to eat. She understands why. This is the way people treat you when you have lost everything. She thinks perhaps her pain might be easier to bear if he were not so sweet to her. If he were the same Sigurd she has always known, pulling at her braids and knocking over her cairn stones.

She does not answer. The words are lodged in her throat, and she cannot coax them out. She begins to pick up the stones again, collecting them to her feet and beginning the laborious task of stacking them once more.

“What are you making there?” Sigurd asks. “A little stone man?”

“This one is Kjotve,” she tells him, venom in her voice. “And he… I’m going to… I--” her voice breaks and cracks like an overworked skald’s, and she begins to weep. She cannot stop herself. They are the first tears she has allowed herself, and there is no more holding them back. They come, like an ocean tide bearing a horde of drengr, and the trails they leave on her cheeks are colder than ice. She leaves the stones at her feet, wraps her arms about herself, and struggles to control the jerking and shuddering of her body as the emotion takes hold of her. Sigurd does not speak, only comes closer, and his long arms wrap about her. She allows the contact, leans into him and buries her face into the soft fur of his mantle. This will be the last time she cries, she vows to herself. She cannot grow to be a mighty warrior if she is unable to keep herself from spilling over in this shameful way.

-

She is sixteen summers. She is proud of her strong limbs and powerful swing. She shattered a shield while training with Sigurd yesterday morning, crowing in delight at the stunned look on his face and the way he had to take a step back to steady himself from the force of her attack. She kept a sliver of the shield, hollowing a little hole through it and threading it onto a leather cord. She wears it about her neck, now, and Sigurd rolls his eyes each time he sees it. He may be stronger and taller than her, a man full grown, but she is catching up. The top of her head reaches his chin, and while Sigurd favors an enormous two-handed axe, Eivor carries a small sword in each hand. _Let them taste the sting of my blade twice over,_ she laughs each time they parry and dodge. Soon, she will be allowed to go on the raids. She cannot wait. Others are permitted to raid younger, some as early as thirteen, but they are not wards of Styrbjorn. He is protective of Eivor, and she resents the yoke of his affection while also finding herself grateful for it.

He has been away for months, raiding along the coast and harassing Kjotve’s men. Now he is back, and she longs for more time with him. He was not at breakfast, and she suspects the raised voices from Styrbjorn’s room is partly responsible. Sigurd does not see eye to eye with his father. He is brave and brash, where Styrbjorn is diplomatic and adverse to violence. It was not always so, but years of politics have turned Stybjorn’s steel axe blade to gold - pretty, but soft and useless.

She finds Sigurd sitting atop the roof of the stable. This is where he goes to seek quiet, much like Eivor does with her cairn stones. She climbs up easily, bracing her soft booted feet against the wooden rafters and pulling herself up one hand over the other. He smiled, shakes his head.

“I can never hide from you for long. You’ve got a nose like one of my father's hounds.”

“I know all your secrets as you know mine,” she informs him. “You cannot hide from your shadow.”

“Perhaps I can, if I am standing beneath another’s shadow,” he answers. His blue eyes darken perceptibly, and he swings his feet where they dangle.

“You and Styrbjorn fought.” It is a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” he admits, but offers little more.

“Are you going to tell me what it was about, or do I need to break your legs as well as your shield?”

Sigurd snorts, strokes his beard. It has come in soft and full, and the sun makes individual strands of it shine like spun gold. “You do not threaten me, little crow feeder.”

She laughs, leans into him. Their shoulders touch, and she rests her head on her shoulder as she has done a hundred times, a thousand times, before. 

“I only wish to lighten your burden, brother. But if you prefer silence, then we shall sit here and watch the horses leave droppings for the thralls.”

Sigurd sighs, so deeply it nearly dislodges her head from his shoulder. “Father has decided it is time for me to be wed. He has promised me to a woman from another clan. He says it will ensure peace.”

“Axes ensure peace,” she offers. She can tell from his tone he is not pleased with his father’s decision. Sigurd has no desire to marry, to father children of his own. He wishes only to raid, to bring back riches and see every piece of land his ship might reach. He wants what Eivor wants someday - glory, and honor, until the doors of Valhalla open to him.

“It is done,” Sigurd says through clenched teeth. “No axe can save me from the gallows of matrimony now. As always, my father has made decisions that concern me without consulting me on them.”

“When?” She asks, dreading the answer.

“In time. I am leaving in the morning. I plan on spending as much time as I can away from home. If he wants to bind me to the marriage bed, he’ll have to catch me first.”

She feels a great and terrible sorrow, then, and it is not a feeling she quite understands. Perhaps it is because it means even less time with Sigurd. Between raiding and managing a marriage, there will be even less time for _them._ There will be fewer and fewer moments like this. She will lose him to this strange woman, and to his duties as a king’s son. She will accept it, as she must. She will dance at his wedding feast and soak her head in ale, until this new pain in her heart subsides and she can force joy on his behalf.

“I am with you to the end,” is all she can say. Her heart skips a beat, then another, before resuming. It is not a drumbeat of war, but one of loss.

-

Eivor the Wolf Kissed, they call her. Adopted sister to Sigurd. Drengr. The last thing you see before the cries of battle horns usher you into Hela's embrace. It is a name Eivor bears with pride. There were many other names she might have been given. Names are not always things that speak of bravery or epic battles. There is Siglunde the Stupid, for example... Or Brön the Half-Length. The joke isn't about his height.

Though the name had been assigned to her when she was only a child, it is a title she has grown into with relish. In her mind, the name was a jerkin of fine craftsmanship, too big for her short stature and narrow shoulders. It was not fit for a child, but a title made for a warrior. It was something to grow into, and grow into it she has. Not only in name but in height and width. At eighteen winters, she is a fearsome and accomplished warrior who casts an intimidating shadow. Sigurd is tall, but only has a few inches on Eivor now despite their five year age gap. He stopped growing three summers ago, and Eivor continued her climb towards the heavens. At night, she lies in bed and dreams of a day when her name will be sung in great halls and mead will be spilled in her name. _Eivor the Wolf Kissed, friend of ravens. Odin’s favored drengr,_ they’ll shout.

Tonight, the longhouse is packed full, the air laden with revelry and song. Mead pours freely and a suckling pig turns slowly over the spit, hot fat splitting the skin and dripping down onto the fire beneath. Despite her joyous surroundings, Eivor feels no pleasure. She drinks, but it is not in celebration. Tonight, they drink and dance in honor of Sigurd’s marriage. When it is over and the revelers have fallen over in the deep sleep only mead can bring, Sigurd will take his new wife to bed. That will be it. The end. He will be hers and she will be his, and there will be no room for Eivor anymore. She is angry, and she stares across the longhouse at the redheaded woman who has stolen her place. She drinks from her horn, mead wetting her lips and at times slopping onto her jerkin. _Randvi,_ she thinks to herself. _Her name is Randvi, and you should be happy for him. He will be king someday, and a king needs sons._

The mead is thick in her veins, taking what little grace her tongue once had with it. Eivor is not one to make pretty words, true. She reserves what small gentleness she bears for Sigurd and Sigurd alone. If not for him, she would be dead with the rest of her family. Truly, he has saved her twice; First, when he pulled her up onto that horse and lead them on a terrifying flight through the woods, flaming arrows from Kjotve’s men thudding into trees alongside them or the snow at the mare’s feet. The second time was after the fall, when she lay bleeding on the ice beside the still form of the wolf who had savaged her, nearly tearing out her throat. She had vague memories of that one, bits and pieces of Sigurd pressing a bit of cloth to her injury and carefully, painstakingly carrying her back across the cracking ice over the water. His face was her last memory before the pain and blood loss took her mind.

She stares into the fire now, finishes her horn of mead, and rises to her feet somewhat unsteadily. Despite the celebration around her, she cannot disengage from the ghosts of her memory. Not now, with mead weakening her walls. As always, the memories are present. Haunting her, even during such joyous times. Nine years have passed, and she is still too young and feeble to bring Kjotve to his knees. Each moment he remains alive is an offense to the gods and to her. She has brought no honor back to her family, and slain none but Kjotve’s lowest lackeys. She shuffles in the direction of her sleeping quarters, ducking and evading the friendly arms and cheers of her comrades. Her blood is ice, despite the mead hot in her belly. It has always been thus. She has never been able to let go, and it is part of the reason she keeps herself so withdrawn and separate. Only with Sigurd can she be herself. Only with him can she allow the true scars she bears to show.

Head down, she bumps into someone and almost immediately recognizes the ornaments upon his chest. The trappings of a king’s son. Sigurd. She looks up into his surprised and merry eyes, bright and blue as a new sky. He is nothing like the Sigurd in her childhood memories any longer. His chestnut hair is pulled back in a traditional knot, and golden beads adorn his beard. He laughs down at her, the sound of it light and bright with mead. He, too, has been celebrating in earnest. He looks considerably more pleased than he was two winterss ago, when he was first told of his arranged marriage.

“Eivor, sneaking away early again? For shame. And during a celebration in my honor.”

She ducks her head, not wanting to meet his eyes. “I have grown weary. Let them be drunken fools until sunrise without me.”

Gentle fingers lift her chin, and she is made to look into those vibrant eyes once more. 

“Eivor,” Sigurd says solemnly, “This is a wedding feast. Tell me, why do you look as though you are attending a thrall’s funeral?”

She shrugs, the beads in her own braids clinking at the movement. “I am only tired. It has been a long day and the mead makes my eyes heavy.”

“It would appear it is your heart that is heavy,” he tells her, giving her chin a little shake. His fingers are long and warm, fitting about the bottom half of her face. They curl over her right cheek, bringing tendrils of heat with them. She doesn’t want him to move them, but knows if she doesn’t shake them loose he will see what lies at the heart of her. He will know, and she couldn’t bear it if he did. She is ashamed to feel this way on his wedding night. She shifts her eyes away, breaking the contact and moving as though to go around him.

“You should go, brother. You have a bride to take to bed soon.”

He catches her arm as she tries to move past him, drawing her back. She fights him momentarily, but his grip on her arm is unforgiving. He pulls her about, pushes her against the wall, and stares into her frost-clouded eyes. She can feel the wooden planks and ornate carvings pressing into her, and wishes she might become one with the longhouse wall. Longhouse walls do not grow hot under scrutiny like this. Her cheeks burn like two suns beneath his penetrating gaze.

“Eivor,” Sigurd’s voice softens but his hands do not yield. _“Please._ Do not hide from me. Tell me what troubles you so.”

She meets his blazing eyes, and realizes somewhat too late that she has not properly restrained herself. Their gazes lock, and he seizes upon the secret he sees within her almost immediately. There is no one who knows her better, and she is a fool to think she could hide it from him forever.

_“Evior,_ ” his voice changes in pitch and tone, lowering and softening still further. A hand comes up again, taking her chin captive once more. He looks taken aback, but not... displeased. He tilts her face to the side, fingers applying firm pressure lest she resist. She doesn’t, though she has to will her limbs not to shake as he examines the scar on the right side of her neck. The mark that has given her the name Wolf-Kissed. 

“Wolf Kissed,” he murmurs, more to himself than to her. He turns her face back up to his, the grip one of immovable iron. “Eivor the _Wolf-Kissed,_ but I wonder… Have any kissed you since the wolf did?” His lips curve into a small smile, and she feels her insides turn molten beneath his gaze. His thumb grazes over her lips, once, twice, before stopping at the center of her lower lip and applying a small amount of pressure. Her lips part under the encouragement, and something gleams in the depths of his crystal-bright eyes. Desire. Desire as powerful and all-encompassing as hers. She makes no move to fight, nor does she encourage him. She wants this to be his choice. For two summers, she has burned for him. And until this night… she has only been a child to him. An adopted sister. A fledgling, fallen from a nest and needing his family to care for her. But tonight, something has changed.

Her body trembles against her will, and Sigurd feels it in his fingers. His eyes search hers, and then he withdraws his hand and lowers his mouth to hers. His lips are soft, the beads in his beard whispering a gentle song as their mouths meet. She gives him the lead, unsure of what to do. This is territory entirely foreign to her. He presses into her, their bodies meeting and melding, and she is now grateful for the wall that sustains her. Without it, she is sure she would tumble. Her lips part beneath his, and his tongue extends to meet hers. His mouth is honey-sweet with mead, and she finds she is clutching the lapels of his cloak. Her blood is no longer ice; it is fire, flames licking hot and greedy in her veins. She wants to clutch him to her, demand more of him, make him _hers._ But she can only stand here, forcing her feet to plant themselves to the earth lest she fall. Their lips speak silent words against each other, forming promises and voicing desires that can only be useless cries into a thoughtless void. It is too late for them, and there will only be this moment.

When he pulls away, her cheeks are still burning hot. She is grateful for the darkness, shielding her shame in herself. 

“Eivor?” Sigurd asks, his voice as much a question as it is a caress. He is asking how she feels about it, asking her if this was what she wants. She cannot tell him yes. He is promised to another, and the rites have been conducted. He is not hers. He belongs to Randvi now, and she will not interfere in such a thing.

“Not bad,” she forces herself to say, the words like a jagged sword edge in her throat. “But hardly the first, sweet Sigurd. Now let me go, for I am tired.”

He lets out a soft laugh, as though seeing her deception for what it is, and steps back. 

“Goodnight, Eivor the Wolf-Kissed,” he calls over his shoulder as he makes his way back into the feast hall. She watches him go, the molten honey in her gut turning to a hard lump of frozen rock once more.

She cries herself to sleep that night. It is the second time in nine years she has allowed herself to buckle so, and it is for an equally painful loss.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus far it is spoiler-free for those who have not finished the game. I will do my best to warn anyone if it gets spoiler-y, but... considering this is all Eivor in her younger years still, we should be gtg. :)
> 
> \-----------------------------

Sigurd leaves again shortly after the wedding, staying only two weeks before setting off once more in his longship. She is too ashamed to face him, to meet his eyes and acknowledge the kiss between them. Her lips feel branded, seared by heated metal and forever marking her for what she is. A spectacular fool. Eivor the Snake. Eivor the Spineless. Her traitorous heart cares little. It begs for more, pleads with her to seek him out and throw herself at his feet, laying it all before him and offering herself up. Offering her heart. Not a traditional sacrifice, as one might make to Odin, but a sacrifice to the man who is all but a god in her heart. She will not allow it such a concession, and instead perches atop the high branches of a skeletal tree and watches as his ship sails off into the distance. Even from this vantage point, she can hear the oars dipping into water. She knows Sigurd’s face will be turned east, eyes closed as she takes in the sun’s rays upon his cheeks and breathes in the salty air.

“May your water steed lead you to glory, brother,” she whispers, though only the wind might hear her. He is lucky. He has a ship, in which to escape his woes. She has no such thing, and must return to Fornburg and face his new wife now. The thought is a crossbow bolt to her gut, and she grits her teeth. She cannot sit here and moo like a lovesick cow any longer. Kjotve sits in grand halls and drinks mead while she perches in a tree like Synin and yearns for a man already wed. She utters a prayer to Odin for wisdom, one to Freyja for victory, and lastly to Thor for strength before beginning the long climb down. It is still morning, and there is ample time to train with her swords.

She is sparring with another drengr - a man named Arne - when she feels eyes on her. She knows them, even if the sun were not gleaming off of a headful of rich copper hair at the edge of her vision. Randvi is perched on the fence, watching as Eivor’s blades whistle and slash through the air. Her presence sets Eivor on edge, breaks her focus, and her opponent manages a glancing blow off her left bracer. The sword falls from her hand, clatters to the earth, and she only just manages to parry the follow-up strike. She laughs, drops and rolls, rising behind Arne and placing a well-placed kick to the back of one knee. He falls, and when he attempts to rise, the tip of Eivor’s blade at the back of his neck gives him pause.

“Well played, Wolf Kissed,” Arne laughs. She lifts her sword, and he clambers back to his feet. “Your swords will come in handy on the next raid. I will leave you to your watcher, now.” He nods in Randvi’s direction, beads clinking in his beard and in his headful of ragged chestnut hair. The Raven clan is neutral, if not cool, to their newest member. If not for Randvi, their clans would still be clashing over territory and resources. The former enmity is not one so easily forgotten, and drengr are not known for their forgiving natures. It is hard to forget that the men who now stand at their sides as friends were once the same who killed brothers and fathers and sisters and mothers. Randvi has thus far lived a somewhat lonely life among Eivor’s people, keeping close to Stybjorn’s side as her one true ally. Eivor would feel sympathy for her, if not for the ugliness still burning like embers in her chest.

“You are skilled for one so young,” Randi tells her as Eivor reluctantly approaches.

“You are observant for one so old,” she retorts, sheathing her swords. There is no sting to her words. At least, none that Sigurd’s new bride might notice.

Randvi surprises her by laughing. She throws her head back and belts out a hearty laugh that belies her slender frame. “Eivor, the sharp of tongue. It is a pleasure to know you.”

The words carry warmth in them, and Eivor fights against the urge to soften to this woman. It is all she can do to bear the pain of what she has lost to Randvi, and to allow friendship to blossom will only add more stones to the crushing weight upon her shoulders. This is the closest she has allowed herself to get to her, standing a few feet away and looking up at her from where she sits atop the fence. Randvi’s eyes sparkle, and Eivor can see strength in her smaller frame. She is no sapling branch, to bend and break beneath pressure. She is strong and vital, and there is a fearlessness in her eyes that Eivor recognizes within her own self. Perhaps they are not so different. It is a realization that stings; seawater in a fresh wound. Sigurd cares for Eivor, more than any other in his life. If this Randvi is too similar to Eivor, then perhaps it will make it all the easier for him to grow to love her. _A fruitless thought pattern,_ she tells herself. _It will never matter if he loves her or not. The marriage is done._

“Was there something you needed?” Eivor asks, willing the edge from her words.

“We have barely spoken since I arrived here,” Randvi says, sounding somewhat melancholy. “I was hoping to find friends here. As Sigurd’s sister, you are my family now. Do you think we could be friends as well?”

“Friendship is not a basket of bread one might pass around as in the feast hall,” Eivor shrugs. “It is a thing that must be forged, like a sword. The greater the effort, the stronger the friendship.”

“Shall we go ice fishing?” Randvi asks, a smile touching her lips. “One cannot forge a sword without cool water to temper the blade.”

Eivor regards her, carefully controlling her expression. She might rather weave at a loom with the old wives than spend time with Randvi, but she feels backed into a corner. She knows she should make an effort. It was not so long ago that she was an outsider, brought in from a shattered clan and made to feel welcome. She will do this, for Sigurd’s sake more than her own. She will look after his new wife while he is away, tasting the waves and plundering foreign treasures on his road to glory.

She dips her head. “I know a place we might go. The fish are always hungry, and the ice will bear our weight.”

“Excellent,” Randvi cries, clapping her hands. “Between the two of us, we shall have a feast fit for kings by day’s end.”

She hops down from her perch. There is a light in her eyes that has been missing since her arrival, and Eivor feels a pang of guilt upon seeing it. She has been no better at welcoming this woman than the others of her clan, and has contributed to Randvi’s isolation with her selfish and private yearning.

There is no feast that evening, for despite Eivor’s promise, the fish are not hungry and do not bite. Randvi’s horse stumbles and founders on the ride home and must be led back, unable to bear weight. Randvi rides behind Eivor on the back of her chestnut mare, and there is a strange kinship in the closeness. They are two women bound to the same man, one by an alliance and another by fate. He has left them to their own devices, choosing to carve out his own destiny rather than rot in a longhouse beside his father. Eivor cannot blame him, cannot find it in herself to resent him. Were she faced with the burden he carries, and entered into a marriage she did not want, she would likely burn the longhouse down rather than capitulate. The sort of songs sung in feast halls are not written after the good and the obedient. History only remembers the brave and the fierce, the cunning and the wily.

_Perhaps a friendship with her would not be so terrible,_ Eivor thinks, conscious of the woman’s arms around her waist and the cheek pressed to her shoulder. It is not the touch she yearns for, but it is somehow comforting in its own right. Something shifts in her. It is a sense of acceptance. Resignation. If Sigurd is to write his own saga, then she shall as well.

She takes Arne to her bed that night. He is tall, his shoulders broad, like Sigurd's. His hair is long and a deep chestnut, unlike Sigurd’s, but it is similar enough that when she closes her eyes in the dark of her room, she can almost believe it is him. The fingers fumbling at the laces of her breeches are not Arne’s, but Sigurd’s. The hot mouth on her neck and the beard brushing against her cheek are not his, but Sigurd’s. It is almost enough to quiet the dull ache in her gut, the pain both his absence and his presence bring her. She twines her hands in Arne’s thick braids and directs his face to other places. It is easier this way, when she does not have to look him in the eyes and see muddy brown rather than the cerulean irises she wishes to see.

She tells him this is only a momentary heat. That outside of this night, and this room, they are only fellow drengr. Arne is more than amenable to the arrangement. He has no thirst for sons, and beyond the pleasure of her body, the only thing he yearns for is glory and plunder; his weight in gold and thick furs and for his name to be sung by skalds one day. He wants what all drengr want - to be remembered, and to die while his limbs yet have strength. He leaves before first light. Once he is gone and the hollow where his body lay is empty, she presses her hand to the spot, fingers splayed and palm flat, and swallows her grief. He is not Sigurd, and this warmth left behind is only a reminder that her bed is as empty as her heart. Another thing lost, to add to the growing pyre.

  
  


-

It is her twenty second spring. She sits atop the heavy wooden table and flinches at the sting of the willow bark solution Randvi is applying. It is the least of her wounds, though somehow the most tender - a wicked cut from beneath her left eye to just above the corner of her mouth. If Kjotve’s man had gotten any luckier with his strike, Eivor would only be gazing at Randvi with one eye now. Still, she is pleased by it. She hopes for a terrible scar, one that will strike fear into the hearts of her enemies.

“If you don’t stop wiggling, I’ll bind you like Odin bound the dread wolf,” Randvi threatens, setting down a bloody cloth and rinsing her hands in a small bowl of now-tepid water. 

“You can try, little Sigurdswife, but you’d have better luck chasing Árvakr and Alsviðr across the sky. If you leave now, you might catch them.”

Randvi punches her in the arm, then, enough to make her grunt and laugh. The movement sends a flare of pain through her face as she reopens the fresh gash down her left cheek. She has grown to love Randvi these past years, seeing her more as a true sibling than the wife of her adopted brother. Styrbjorn rarely allows Eivor to accompany Sigurd on his travels, insisting he cannot trust both their lives to fate. He is a wedge between them, more effective than Sigurd’s marriage or his roaming ways. She thinks Styrbjorn a fool. If she and Sigurd are meant to die, then they will die as the Nornir have allotted. The threads of fate are woven and cannot be changed. It is the very reason drengr are so fearless in battle. When their time comes, they will welcome the arms of the valkyries.

Eivor, too, has taken up wandering. She has made a name for herself, straying further and further from the shores of Fornburg. If she cannot be with Sigurd, then she will not lurk about the longhouse and under the watchful gaze of Styrbjorn. He is disappointed in her, she knows. She is too much like his son; hot of blood, stubborn of mind, steely in her resolve. He would rather his son be a diplomat, aiding in forging alliances while dodging the shadow of Kjotve’s axe. Sigurd has no use for such things, and takes Eivor’s side on the matter. A king who does not defend his kingdom risks having no kingdom to rule.

After each foray into glory, Randvi stands waiting at the dock with patient hands and kind eyes. There are others who might tend to Eivor’s scrapes and bruises and war wounds, but she does not trust them as she trusts Randvi. 

“I am more than your brother’s wife,” the woman growls. “And I am able enough to whip you like a stubborn horse’s arse if you do not cease to provoke me.”

Eivor raises her hands in surrender. “Odin himself would quake in his boots before you.”

“This will leave quite the scar,” Randvi says, pleased with Eivor’s assessment and returning to her examination.

“A warrior without scars is one who has never truly tasted battle,” she shrugs. “On the day I enter the corpse hall, it will be another story to share.”

Randvi regards her quietly for a moment. “Did you get what you needed?” 

“Yes,” she answers. “Kjotve’s men were more forthcoming after I loosened their tongues. I know where that coward rests his head and which bush he chooses to piss on. Tomorrow, my drengr and I will set out to feed the crows.”

“You should wait,” Randvi tells her. “I know you do not want Styrbjorn to know what you are up to, but Sigurd should be home soon. He promised he would return at first thaw. If you wait just a little longer, he will come. He will go with you. He will have your back in this fight, as he always has.”

“I cannot wait on hope,” Eivor pushes Randvi’s helpful hand aside and stands. “I have waited twelve years to sink my blade into that whoreson’s heart, and I will not wait another second or minute or hour. Kjotve dies tomorrow, at my hand.”

Her friend only sighs, gathers up the herbs and cloths stained by Evivor’s blood. “The two of you share a hardy strain of stubbornness. Be careful, Eivor... And fight well. When you return, we will feast and raise our horns to your victory.”

“There is the confidence I expect from you,” Eivor teases, giving the smaller woman a gentle push on the shoulder. “Best ensure the bakers make enough bread. If my brother is returning, he’ll eat the last of our stores. The man has the appetite of an ox.”

She does not sleep well that night, rest coming only in fitful starts. With Kjotve’s death so close at hand, her dreams are plagued with visions of her family’s village burning. She walks amongst the ashes and charred pillars where the longhouse once stood, stepping over the bodies of the men and women and children she once knew like family. Rosta’s corpse lies where it always has in her dreams, fallen a dozen paces from her husband, arm still outstretched in a beseeching manner, axe just beyond her fingertips. An axe and several arrows protrude from her back like the ragtag feathers of a battleworn rooster, and a crow pecks at her eyes from its perch atop her crown of muddied nut-brown braids.

_Leave her,_ Eivor roars in her dream. But it is not her voice any longer, not the voice of a drengr who’s axe has tasted blood a thousand times. It is the cry of a child, pitiful and mewling and weak. Frozen snow crunches at her back, and she knows without turning that it is the wolf. A great beast with fur blacker than the night itself, lips pulled back and snarling. The wolf always comes at the end of this dream, seeking the flesh it was denied all those years ago. She knows it will catch her if she runs. She looks down at the axe in her hand, the haft so large her child’s fingers cannot wrap about it in a proper grip. The axe is heavy, too heavy to heft it high enough for a blow. Snow crunches again, and the wolf’s hot breath is at her neck. Her tortured flesh, long healed but the memory undiminished, flares like white-hot coals in the longhouse fire. She screams as gleaming fangs reopen her old scars, her voice high and thin and reedy as her heart’s blood gushes down her torso and soaks through her tunic and furs. Dead, without ever raising her axe. Just like Varin.

Her throat is hoarse when she sits upright, sweat beading her skin and strands of hair clinging to her damp forehead and neck. It is not the first time she has woken thusly, and the thralls and Randvi have long since learned to leave her be. She does not require assurances or comfort. The time for that is long past.

Kjotve will die at her hand, and she will at last restore her family’s honor. Sigurd will be home soon after, his presence renewing the dull ache in her heart that subsides each time he is away. Seeing him is much like the wolf tearing open her old scars. She knows it is coming, knows it brings remembered pain, and yet she welcomes it each time she closes her eyes. She has seen less and less of him since the wedding. His journeys take him further and further from home, and each time he leaves the absence is longer. She knows he is hiding from his duties as a husband and a king’s son. He is determined to have his freedom, even if it means abandoning her to watch over the people in his stead.

She should be angry with him, but she is only resigned. This is the path the gods have seen fit to make her walk, and so she shall walk it - one step at a time. 

-

  
  


She is too late, just as she always is. Twelve years of dogging Kjotve’s steps, and there is little left here but the ash beneath her feet. She stands in the center of the ruined village, chin raised to observe the columns of smoke rising from the fort overlooking the charred huts and slain humans and cattle alike. This is Kjotve’s way, burning what his men cannot carry away in wagons. Year after year he encroaches on their clan’s territory, carving a bloody swath through the land and leaving scars that will take decades to heal. These people died badly, and she vows to avenge them as she must avenge her own people.

Dag and the rest of the raiding party have branched out, searching for survivors or remaining supplies. Dag goes where Sigurd commands him, and in Sigurd’s absence, that place is Eivor’s side. She does not fool herself with thinking there is any love lost between her and her brother’s second, but he will do as ordered. Any plunder they find will benefit the clan, though it is doubtful there is much left. If there is, the dead have no need for such things, not any longer. She crouches beside a dead warrior, returns his axe to hands folded across his breast.

“If the Valkyries have not come for you yet, friend, then they will soon,” she promises. “May Odin receive you in his great hall, and may you drink until the ground meets your face.”

She does not know this man, this warrior fallen to Kjotve’s cruelty, but he is one of many faces she has seen this way. One of hundreds, perhaps a thousand, to fall beneath his men's swords and axes. To know one is to know them all. Brave men, slain in the name of greed and grasping. It is a death without glory. She cannot help but feel responsible for him, and for the others. She is not strong enough to reach Kjotve, and each time he slips from her grasp there is only ash and the stained and bloodied ground to meet her. There is no victory to be found in empty hands. Dag clears his throat at her back, and she knows it is time to leave. There is nothing to gather here save the bones of the fallen.

She clings to the mast on the journey home, the icy wind stinging her face and making her eyes water, her banded braids whipping about her like serpents. Synin rides the currents of wind overhead, dipping and climbing with powerful strokes of her wings. Eivor watches her, observes the ripples of the darkening sea around them and the roiling clouds overhead. The first of many rumbles comes from deep in the eye of them. A storm is coming, and this early in spring it could be either a blizzard or a deluge. Thor will be raising his hammer tonight, and the resulting thunder will be truly fearsome.

“How many times will you lead us on this pointless chase?” Dag cannot help himself. He shouts to be heard over the wind, heedless of the men and women on the oars at his back. He does not care if they hear him. He is always first to throw a barb, ever-ready to remind her that she is a failure without Sigurd at her side. She feels her shoulders tighten automatically, but does not embrace her desire to flare back at him.

“As many as it takes to see that whoreson to an early grave,” she answers. “I will bite at his heels until he can no longer ignore the bleeding.”

No sooner are her feet planted on the docks of Fornburg then she is striding to the longhouse with purpose. Randvi sees her darkened brow and only gives her the space she desires, falling back into the shadows with sorrow in her eyes. Eivor empties three tankards of mead before the throbbing ache in her chest begins to lessen. She leans back, body growing languid in the warm glow of the fire and with the mead softening her sharp edges. She is not alone in the hall. Other drengr and thralls and villagers bustle about. The longhouse is rarely empty. Something in her eyes warns off company, and she welcomes the solitude given. She pours a fourth tankard of mead, sloshing more of it outside the cup than in, before bringing it to her lips. One more, and then sleep will take her. She will drink enough to ensure the dreams do not plague her as they so often do.

She is dreaming, and it is for once not a dream of ash and ruin. In this dream, she is standing in a field of crimson flowers. They nod and sway in the gentle breeze, and she extends her hands - allowing the soft petals to brush against her fingertips, velvet and lush. Sigurd is in the distance, calling to her. She laughs with joy, her feet rushing beneath her to reach him. They meet at the center of the field, and he throws his arms about her before lifting her off the ground. She cries out in surprised delight, arms wrapping about his neck and her face nestling into the curve of his jaw. The fur of his mantle is soft against her cheek, and she breathes deeply of him despite herself. 

_Sigurd,_ she whispers against skin that smells of the sun and sea and lands foreign to her, _I missed you terribly._

_I missed you too, my little raven feeder,_ he answers. She is weightless in his arms, a feather carried on gusts of winds in his powerful embrace. She nuzzles close, her cold nose stinging from the warmth of his own skin.

_You smell like the golden fields of Valhalla itself,_ she tells him. She is shocked by her audacity, by her hands in his hair. But this is a dream, and if it is a dream, then by the gods she will say and do as she pleases.

_Perhaps I have been to Valhalla,_ comes his reply. _And found it wanting, without you by my side._ He squeezes her tighter, the heavy muscles in his chest flexing against her beneath the layers of fabric and fur.

She presses her lips to his neck, closing her eyes, and can feel the thrum of his heartbeat just under the skin. Even though it is only a dream, the pace of it quickens beneath her touch.

_Eivor, you forget yourself._ His voice is gentle, far away, echoing as though from somewhere at the end of a corridor. _It is time to_ _wake up._

Her eyes open, blink rapidly against the haze clouding them, and she realizes she is indeed being held in someone’s arms. A red beard with golden beads woven into it tickles her jaw, and her hands are buried in the loose topknot that matches it in color. Her lips are still pressed to Sigurd’s neck, and she gasps and pulls away. Sigurd stands in the doorway of her room, clearly in the process of carrying her drunken arse to bed. He laughs, a low and throaty chuckle, and sets her carefully back on her feet.

“A good dream, I imagine,” he grants her no mercy with his wicked grin. “My only regret is that I have interrupted it.”

The back of her neck could not be hotter than if a thrall poured a pot of boiling water down it. Eivor grasps for words, and is grateful for her quick tongue.

“My apologies,” she answers somewhat smoothly, her words far steadier than the clumsy feet that threaten to tangle under her. She walks like a newborn colt, only slightly less drunk than when she fell asleep. “I was dreaming of a tall and handsome drengr with a hammer to rival Thor’s.”

“A hammer, eh?” Sigurd raises an eyebrow and folds his arms over his chest. “Well, if you go right back to sleep, perhaps you can resume your dream of this hammering.”

“When did you return?” She asks, swaying, before sitting down on her bed to stop the room from spinning.

“Only a few moments ago,” he admits. “I expected a welcoming party, but it would seem my welcoming party started the celebration without me.”

“I did not expect you to be back today,” she shrugs. “Else I’d have saved some mead for you.”

“Yes, I heard you likely drank the entirety of our stores,” Sigurd murmurs kindly. “Randvi told me of Kjotve’s slipping the knife once more. I am sorry. Now that I am back, we will seek him out together.”

“Are you staying, then?” Her voice is sharper than she means for it to be. “Or will you leave before the moon wanes again?”

“I will stay long enough,” his own voice hardens. The voice of a king’s son, who will brook no argument. “Come and find me in the morning, if you can bear the sunlight.”

He turns to go, and regret rises in her. “I am glad to see you, Sigurd,” she tells him. “Truly, I am. Tomorrow will be better.”

“Goodnight, Eivor,” he says in the doorway. There is a surprising heaviness to his voice, and she wonders if her sorrow is not one shared. She does not ask, and he slips away down the hall.

She falls back on her furs, wishing she had the strength to remove her boots. She raises her hands to her lips, presses the pads of her fingers to them. The heat of his neck and the beat of his pulse are still with her. She closes her eyes, wills the dream to return, beseeching the gods to grant her this single boon. The field of red flowers evades her, and all she has to remember them by is the tingle of memory beneath her fingertips.


	3. Chapter 3

Sigurd stays a full month this time, but despite going on two separate raids, there is no sign of Kjotve. He is as sleek as a serpent slipping away into tall grass, and the deaths of his men is small satisfaction. She has killed more men than lesser drengr might meet in a lifetime, but there is little to show for it. A hollow ache in her bones and a stain upon her family’s honor that refuses to be wiped clean. 

“Let us go hunting,” he proposes one morning, eyeing her across the table as she picks at her plate of bread and meat. “Just as we did in our youth.”

“You are attempting to cheer me once more,” she observes, pushing her plate away. “But I am not sure spilling more blood is the answer.”

“Soaking yourself in mead has not helped,” he observes. “Last night you dipped your entire head in the barrel. Tekla is still angry with you over that. I’d avoid her for a few days if I were you. Her temper burns bright.”

“Tekla can brew more,” Eivor shrugs, swinging her leg over the bench. “But if you wish to hunt, then hunt we shall. I hope you are better with a bow than you are at holding my braids.”

Sigurd rolls his eyes. “I kept the puke off of _most_ of them. Your ingratitude wounds me.”

“What are we hunting today, then? My dignity? I’m pretty sure I left it somewhere in the cloudberry bushes outside Alvis’ hut.” 

He laughs at that, then says, “What finer prey for the Wolf-Kissed than that which gave her the title? A pack of wolves has been straying too close to Fornburg’s boundary. We will rid my father of the problem, and gather some fine furs for our trouble.”

If she is afraid of anything, it would be wolves. Since the night Heillboer burned, they have put her ill at ease - much in the way the small hairs on the back of one’s neck stand on end when an ill wind blows. She does not fear death from them; she is far too capable of a warrior to fall to a wolf’s teeth, but they plague her dreams all the same. _The sound of frozen snow crunching beneath heavy paws, a black wolf rising up out of the night._ On her own, she would never go on a venture solely for the sake of hunting them - but with Sigurd at her side, the unease settles somewhat. There is no battle they cannot win when they are together. He knows her unease. He is the only person in her life she would ever trust with such a secret, and he understands it better than anyone else could. He was there that night, heard her cries as the wolf savaged her. It is a thing that would weaken her in the eyes of others, but he sees it as a source of her strength. For this, among so many other things, she loves him. She does not think there was ever any choice in the matter. She is fated to love Sigurd, as he is fated to be wed to another. The Nornir are nothing if not cruel.

They ride out with the sun on their faces. The snowy slopes stretch out before them like a blanket of diamonds, blinding and bright. She is grateful for the tattoos about her eyes, lessening the frigid glare. _The markings of a Valkyrie,_ Svend explained when he laid out his newest designs some months ago. _These runes will protect you and grant you their strength. Should you ever fall in battle, they will lead the valkyries to you, wherever the battlefield may be._ She isn’t sure the tattoos have granted her any such strength, but she wears them with pride. Svend is unmatched in his skill, though Tove is fast proving to be a worthy successor to his trade.

It is not difficult to track the wolves. They are guileless in the purity of their purpose - to hunt and kill, to feed and live. Their tracks follow that of a deer’s, then converge. Crimson paints the snow, telling the story of a deer brought down by gnashing teeth. They dismount, leaving the horses to follow on foot. It is better this way, their booted feet make for softer footfalls. More blood, and a swath carved through the snow. The wolves have dragged their prey off into a stand of trees. As they draw closer to the den, there are remains of past kills scattered about. Frozen bones and hide and feathers; remainders of chickens and cattle and men. The wolves have not been feeding on wildlife alone, and for that, they must meet their end. Only the strongest may survive. Norway is a harsh but beautiful land, it’s people equally so. 

Snarling greets Eivor’s ears, and she holds a finger to her lips. Sigurd nods, drawing his bow. The wolves are feasting on their kill. Hide and flesh and tendons give way beneath sharp fangs and thrashing heads. There are four wolves. Two are thinner, hanging back and waiting for the others to have their fill. The alpha and his mate. The alpha is an enormous beast. His fur is a gleaming black, his graying muzzle red with blood. He has lived many years, and his command over the others is proof none have yet lived through a challenge against him. 

Eivor nocks an arrow, draws her bowstring back. The string creaks with tension. She lines up her shot, holds her breath for a moment, and lets the arrow fly. It finds its mark, burying itself deeply in the shoulder of the great wolf. He falls, his heavy body thudding into the bloodied snow. Sigurd lets an arrow of his own loose, and it finds the alpha’s mate. The two younger wolves tense, hackles raised as they scent the air. The next set of arrows finishes them, too. Sigurd leads the way into the clearing beside the small cave, crouching beside the great wolf.

“Look at the size of him,” he marvels. “You’ll have a cloak fine enough to stir envy in the hearts of all.”

“Do I not stir envy in the hearts of the people already?” She retorts, gesturing at herself. “I can outdrink and outfight any drengr.”

“Except for me,” Sigurd’s eyes gleam. “You’ve landed on your arse plenty of times when sparring with me.”

“It has been years since we sparred, brother,” she growls. “You might find yourself surprised by a seat covered in mud, should you wish to revisit such memories.”

She crouches across from him and examines her kill. The wolf is dead, one eye staring towards the sky. It is still bright and terrible, the cloud of death not yet obscuring it. She can see Synin’s reflection in it, where her raven circles high overhead. She draws her knife and begins the bloody task of field-dressing. Sigurd makes no move to do the same, but remains crouched, forearms resting on his knees and his eyes unreadable as he watches her work.

“You are leaving again,” she says, “and do not wish to tell me.”

“You are always angry with me when I leave,” he answers, eyes never leaving her face. “Though you know I cannot take you with me. It pains me greatly to leave you with your thirst for vengeance once again unfulfilled.”

“Is that the only thing that pains you about leaving?” She regrets the words as soon as they leave her, but it is too late to withdraw the dice. They have been cast.

“Do you wish to hear the truth of it?” He asks, gaze darkening. 

“It is better than half truths.” She wipes at her sweating face with the back of her glove, realizing too late it is far too bloody to be wiping anything.

Sigurd reaches his hand out, wipes away the smear of wolf’s blood with one thumb. The movement is slow and tender, the pad of his thumb callused and rough against her cheek. It is all she can do to keep her hand still and not bring it up to close over his, to bring it to her and press a kiss to his palm.

“Then if we are sharing truths, we will make an exchange. Your truth for mine.”

“I have no truth with which to bargain,” she replies.

“But you do,” he says gently. “I wish to hear of the dream I woke you from.”

His hair is fire and spun gold beneath the midday sun, his blue eyes as cold and fathomless as the sea. There is a spark of knowing in them, one that makes her throat constrict. Surely he cannot know. Surely it was all a dream, and the words spoken to her were part of it. 

Her hands freeze in the wolf’s fur, her jaw tightens reflexively. “What business is it of yours who I dream of, or who warms my thoughts?”

“A truth for a truth,” is his only reply. Does she imagine the corners of his mouth lifting, just a little?

She does not answer. In her mind’s eye she sees Randvi, her sad eyes watching each time as Sigurd sets sail again and again over the years. Randvi, who is a good and dutiful wife married to a man who follows the north wind any time it blows. She cannot confess her feelings to Sigurd. She could not on the night he was married, and she cannot now. To spill her words upon this bloodied snow would be to betray her friend, and betrayal is a bitter thing. It is not a taste she wishes to acquire. There is ample burden enough in her father’s cowardice. She will not live her own life dishonorably.

Sigurd sees the jut of her jaw and the stubbornness in her eye, and sighs. “We are too much alike. You are a wall of stone, but I… am water. Water wears away stone. All it needs is time.”

“The only thing you are wearing on is my patience,” she tells him. “I’ll not be skinning your wolves for you, brother. If you want those furs, you’d best draw your knife while the sun is still high.”

He laughs, the frozen sea in his eyes warming to a burbling stream. “As you command, little raven feeder.”

It is the sun’s warmth that kisses her cheeks with fever, she tells herself, and not the warmth in his eyes that makes it so. He forgives her stubbornness, as she forgives herself for the heat in her belly at the remembrance of his touch. They speak of simpler times as they work, times when Kjotve was little more than a whisper and the world stretched out brightly before them.

  
  


-

  
  
  


The only thing worse than the pounding of her head is the cacophony of sounds coming from the foot of the bed. She opens her eyes, shielding them from the bright morning light filtering in through the window. The events of the past night are hazy, but return to her slowly. There was a drinking contest, a loud-mouthed band of raiders, and a fist fight. She probes at her left eye and finds it tender and swollen. Her lip is split, though it has since closed. She remembers her victory, and grins. She looks down to find she is naked, the only thing covering her is the large white fur of a bear. 

“Ah, you’re awake!” A voice observes, and the assault of sound ceases momentarily. The man perched on the end of the bed is slender of build, with large dark eyes and a headful of similarly dark curls. He holds a harp in his hand, and she identifies it as the source of her prior torment.

“Am I in Helheim?” She demands, rubbing at her eyes.

“You are in my hut,” her companion answers, strumming an out of tune chord. “You came back with me after last night’s merriment. Do you not remember?”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, praying that Odin’s ravens might pluck the man’s eyes out if he touches the harp one more time, and tries to recall the rest of the evening. She got piss-drunk and stood on a table, belting out songs and dancing with some of the other patrons. The band of raiders from a rival clan came into the alehouse, began harassing the keeper, and she stepped in. There was a great brawl, one in which she came out victorious. More ale was poured, and then… _Oh, no._ She remembers him now. He trailed after her about the alehouse like a calf behind its mother, singing her praises and promising her the world. His presence now is a testament to just how much ale she had. From the looks of things, she’d drunk more than her weight in it.

“I told you last night I would forever immortalize you in song, and I mean to make good on my vow,” her companion assures her, strumming another cursed chord. What was his name? Lars? Lage? Lief? Ah, Lief. That was it. _Lief the Lousy._ To her horror and the continued agony of her splitting head, Lief begins to sing.

_"On a night without stars a raider shadowed my door_

_Hair golden like wheat and eyes blue like the sky_

_Fearsome was she and tall as a moor_

_Drinking ale and spinning tales and letting fists fly..."_

  
  


His voice is high and tremulous, and she holds up one hand to halt him. “I would thank you to stop. Neither my head nor my ears can handle much more.” Of all the people in all the villages she might stumble into, it had to be a skald with eyes as wide and hopeful as a newborn faun’s. It takes effort not to physically recoil from his affections.

Lief stops strumming, disappointment in his eyes. “You do not like it?”

“What you lack in skill you make up in spirit,” she tells him, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and searching for her gear. She can feel his eyes on her, drinking in the sight of lean muscle overlaid with scars and runic tattoos. All she wants is to leave, to ride back to Fornburg and crawl into her own bed. Let none see her shame but Randvi. Sweet Randvi, who brings her water and herbs to lessen the ache in her head. Lief is one of several men whose company she has sought out during Sigurd’s long absences - though he is the only one she finds herself regretting. The others were drengr and knew to leave once the deed was done. Nine long months have passed since Sigurd’s last departure, with no word. As always, the longer he is abroad the more restless she grows. There is a great void in her _hugr_ , a blackness so deep that no amount of mead or merrymaking might brighten it.

“Gods, but you are beautiful,” Lief says in an awestruck tone. “Of all the women in Norway, I never expected Eivor the Wolf Kissed would be willing to share my bed. Please, stay. If you do not wish me to worship you with song, then let me worship you in other ways like the goddess you are.”

“Lief, I thank you for your kindness and… _hospitality,_ but I must be on my way. I am not the drengr for you.” She is dressing as fast as she is able, hopping now to slide on her left boot.

“My name is _Liev,”_ the skald tells her somewhat indignantly. He sets his harp down and folds his arms, watching her with a considerably cooler gaze.

_“Liev,_ of course. I am sorry, but I really must be going.” The boot at last slides over her heel, and she throws her cloak over her shoulders before picking up her sword belt.

“You couldn’t get my name right last night, either,” Liev continues, sounding distinctly dismayed. “Eivor the Ale-Soaked. Eivor the Mead-Witted. That’s a more fitting song. Perhaps I shall write it.”

“Whatever you wish to do. It is no concern of mine.” She is losing patience, her restraint snapping like a distressed rope. Her hand is on the door latch, but his next words freeze her in place.

_“Sigurd,_ you called me. You cried it out as you dragged your nails down my back like a wild animal.” The gentleness is gone from his tone, replaced by anger. “I wonder if the Sigurd of your ale-addled mind is not the very one you call brother. Sigurd Styrbjornson, of Fornburg. Now, wouldn’t that be a song for the sagas. Eivor the Wolf Kissed, mighty drengr and slayer of men. Made to forever yearn for an embrace that will not come.”

She turns slowly, her blood changing to ice in her veins. One hand rests on the hilt of a sword. A promise, spoken without so much as a whisper. She meets Liev’s furious gaze with a deadly one of her own. “You’d best mind your tongue, skald, lest you lose it. It’s a hard living, to be a skald without one.”

He swallows, and she can see the lump of it bob its way down his slender neck. Anger changes to fear, and he lowers his eyes rather than continue to meet hers. She kicks the door of the hut open, stepping out into the daylight and grimacing from the pain of it as it sears her aching eyes. Her chestnut mare, Astrid, is tied to a post. It is one small blessing, that she does not have to search the town for her mount. Perhaps the gods have not entirely abandoned her. She climbs into the saddle and turns the mare towards Fornburg. Astrid’s hoofbeats are like drums beating in her ears. Liev’s words wrap tightly around her like Jörmungandr’s coils.

_Eivor the Wolf Kissed, mighty drengr and slayer of men. Made to forever yearn for an embrace that will not come._

  
  


-

It is late. All are asleep save Eivor, who roams the halls like a cursed shade. She wanders into the great hall, seeking the comfort of mead or perhaps some leftover honey cakes. She is surprised to see a form huddled before the great fire, a fur wrapped about the shoulders and hands outstretched for warmth. She recognizes the fine-boned hands, the visible slope of cheek, the gleam of copper-bright hair.

“Randvi?” She asks, stepping into the circle of firelight. Randvi does not look up from gazing into the flames, though a small smile touches her lips.

“Eivor. I see I am not the only one who is wakeful this night.”

She sits, taking the bench across from Randvi. “What troubles you, my friend?”

Randvi pulls the fur tighter about herself, more as a gesture of comfort than seeking warmth. “I have been married to your brother for five years, Eivor.”

“It is a long time,” she answers carefully.

“Yes, it is,” Randvi nods. “Five years, in which I have seen perhaps five _months_ of him. Always, he wanders - and his returns feel more like prolonged goodbyes for the next voyage. You are the only person I can speak of such things with, Eivor. I hope you do not mind that I bend your ear.”

“You can speak to me of anything,” she promises. “Much as I know I could speak to you.” _Except for one thing. The thing I cannot tell anyone,_ she adds silently. _Least of all you._

“Five years, and he has shared my bed on perhaps three occasions. I do not know how I am to build something from nothing.” Randvi spreads her hands helplessly, the fur slipping from her slumped shoulders without them. “I cannot build a marriage with a husband who would avoid me rather than meet my eyes. I cannot bear sons for a man who will not touch me. I cannot be a wife in a marriage of one. I care for him, Eivor, I do. But I have come to see that it will never be love. There is no room for me in his heart.”

“Perhaps these are things best said to my brother,” she answers, hoping the glow of the fire will hide the scarlet shame upon her cheeks. Shame, for despite her friend’s pain, there is a spark of relief and hope in her chest.

“What do I say to him?” Randvi demands, voice full of grief. “That I suspect he has given his heart to another? That I know I am to spend my days doing little more than transcribing communications from other clans, logging the complaints of our people, and counting trade goods for Styrbjorn’s coffers? That I am forever doomed to stare out at an empty horizon, watching for a ship that may someday cease to return?”

“You think he loves another?” Her heart has ceased its rhythm. It is a useless lump of stone in her chest, the weight of it threatening to drown her.

Randvi sighs. “Have you not seen the signs? Have you never been in love, Eivor? That faraway look in his eyes whenever he is alone. His lack of interest in feasting or song. When he looks at me, he sees _through_ me. I have tried to reach him, but he is gone somewhere I cannot go.”

_Have you never been in love, Eivor?_ The words are an unwitting accusation, and she all but flinches at the stinging lash of them. There is more to them than that, though. A tell in the way Randvi’s lip trembles just so.

“You have been in love before,” she states instead, and Randvi’s eyes lift to meet hers.

“Yes,” Randvi breathes, the memory belaboring her voice.

“What happened?” Eivor asks. 

“I was promised to another,” she whispers, the firelight dancing over her suddenly careworn features. Her beauty is undiminished, but the pain of her loss is etching fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. There are shadows in cheeks that were once fuller, and sorrow darkens the hollows of her eyes. Five years she has lived in Fornburg, trying to make the best of a fate already woven. “There was nothing that could be done. This marriage would secure my clan’s future, and so… I came here.”

“I am sorry for the way things had to be. The Nornir often weave us destinies that seem unkind. Even so, there is wisdom in each strand. They brought you here, that you might establish peace between our clans. That is no small thing. How many draw breath to this day, in light of your sacrifice?”

She hopes her words bring comfort. No matter her feelings for Sigurd, she loves Randvi with an equal ferocity. She finds no joy in seeing her brother’s wife this way, the grief in her eyes mirroring the pain in Eivor’s own heart. Their struggles are of equal desperation - two loves, made to wither for the greater good. She remembers words her father once spoke to her mother. _Find me a man content with his lot, and I will show you a man who has lived a life free from the meddling of the gods._

“At least I have you,” Randi tells her, extending her hands towards the fire once more. “You warm my heart enough that it does not freeze over.”

“As you do mine,” Eivor agrees, allowing a smile. 

  
_Eivor of Two Faces,_ she thinks to herself. _Comforting Randvi even as her husband visits your dreams._


	4. Chapter 4

She crests the rocky outcrop overlooking Fornburg and sees his longship at the dock. She feels her lips spread into a wide grin, and she urges Astrid down the hill. The rivers are swollen with runoff, harkening the short summer months ahead. Astrid covers the ground in a long-legged canter, hooves placed nimbly amidst rock and clumps of new grass. A tall form walks among the people in the street beyond. She would recognize him anywhere, even if it were not for the thick banded braid of sunkissed auburn atop his head. She does not rein Astrid in, but gives the mare her head and climbs up into a crouch on the saddle. He sees her, then, arms flinging to the sky in joy at the sight of her. He bellows a challenge that echoes off the craggy mountains surrounding their village. When she is close, she bunches the muscles in her legs and launches from the saddle, barreling into Sigurd in a tangle of leather and furs and laughter. There is shouting and sounds of jars smashing as Astrid continues her riderless run through the market.

They wrestle, laughing and breathless, heedless of the muddied street as they roll over and over in it. Something snaps, and she is dimly aware of the fact that it is her well-weathered bow giving way at last beneath such abuse. Sigurd, exceeding her both in height and weight, comes out victorious - pinning her in the muck. His eyes dance, twin flames of cold and beautiful light.

“I was wondering where you were,” he says, gasping for air. “This is the first time you have not been here when I returned, and none of the alehouses have complained of depleted stores.”

“I went a-hunting,” she answers. “Randvi had a yearning for roast venison. Before I knew it, I was helping a frail old man throw crates of his possessions over a cliff’s edge.”

“And did you throw the old man over the cliff’s edge too, little drengr?” He asks, grinning wickedly. She takes this moment to twist and roll, using his weight and her knees to unseat him. His eyes widen in surprise at her strength, and then he laughs uproariously as he finds himself sitting in the mud beside her.

“I told you I might surprise you one day with a muddy seat,” she growls.  _ “Little _ drengr, indeed.”

Slowly, deliberately, his grin never faltering, he raises his hand and mashes a handful of mud onto the top of her head. She squeezes her eyes shut as it seeps into her braids, cold and wet and dripping about her ears and down her forehead. “You will always be little to me. Little raven feeder. Little drengr. Little  _ tiny  _ Eivor.”

_ “Bacraut, _ I’ll have your beard for this,” she threatens, launching herself at him once more.

“Are my two greatest warriors to be seen by the rest of my clan, rolling about in mud and horse shit?” Styrbjorn’s voice interrupts their fight, and Sigurd seems to remember himself at once. He rises from the mud, extending a hand down to Eivor. She takes it, allowing him to haul her up beside him.

“Father,” Sigurd nods respectfully, making no attempt to wipe the mud from himself. “Eivor has returned from her hunt.” He delivers the line effortlessly, as though he were standing in a great hall of thegns and jarls with a cup raised, and not covered in mud and standing in the middle of the road beside a drenched Eivor.  _ Ever the king’s son, _ she smiles to herself,  _ even when covered in shit. _

“Yes, Sigurd, we know. Her stag is lying on the dock in front of the fishmonger’s hut, and her horse is in Aldith’s garden.” Styrbjorn has the look of a man who is walking a road he has walked a thousand times before, and is weary of it.

“Best go catch her, Eivor,” Sigurd winks at her. It is a wink that says  _ Go, I will deal with my father’s ire.  _ She flashes him a grin and runs off down the street, whistling for Astrid and attempting to scoop the mud from her tangle of braids. She is glad to have him back, though she doubts he will stay long. No sooner do his boots touch earth than is he packing for the next voyage. She has given up on him staying for long.

She is forced to undo every last one of her braids in order to get the mud out. One by one she sets the silver bands beside the basin, before lowering her head and pouring the heated water over her head. Three scrubs and rinses, and she can still feel grit on her scalp. When she is clean enough to be presentable once more, mud and horse shit no longer staining her tawny locks, she picks up a wooden comb and works through the tangles. Randvi would help her, if she asked - but she does not want to pull Randvi away from her time with Sigurd. Her hair curls softly as it dries in the open air, pulling into gentle waves. It is the color of Tekla’s summer ale, light and golden. Eivor would not care if she had a face to rival a horse’s arse, but her hair is her one vanity. It would be easier to shave it off. Then there would be no worry of mud or blood to wash from it. She begins the laborious task of braiding it again, clasping each band back in place.

There is a sound at her back. The soft shuffle of boots at the door. She turns, expecting to see Randvi, and is surprised to see Sigurd there.

“Are you braiding your hair?” He sounds surprised, shocked by the revelation that Eivor the Wolf-Kissed might do something so mundane.

“Who do you think has been braiding my hair all these years? Dag?” She snorts.

“If there is any man with a soft touch, it is certainly not Dag.”

The way he is looking at her, his eyes roaming over the honey-wheat waves of her hair about her shoulders, cuts through her heart like an arrow.

“Unless  _ you _ plan to do the braiding for me and spare my arms the burning?” She prods, wishing he would leave. Wishing he would not look at her like that. Her lungs cannot fill with air when his eyes are on her in this way. There is no armor between herself and that piercing gaze that lingers.

“I am only here to warn you,” he says, shaking his head. “Your horse trampled the lingonberries promised to Tekla, and she’s looking for you. She’s yelling something about how if you don’t find her more in time for the fermenting, she’ll sell your horse to the next trader she meets. Honestly, Eivor, is there no end to your harassing the poor woman?”

“It would seem I manage to provoke her even when I am trying not to,” she sighs, picking up another silver band. “I will see it done.”

  
  


There is a great feast that night, now that she is also returned. Sigurd’s journey was a great victory, and he has brought back treasures and gifts for all. She watches, mead in hand and boots on the table, as Sigurd hands out gifts to all in attendance. Randvi is given a fine gold bracelet, engraved with delicate swans. The children of the clan are given bits of amber-colored treats that are sweet to the tongue like honey and slowly melt when sucked on. Styrbjorn is given a heavy chain, rubies gleaming from the setting. Red, like their banners and sashes. It is a gift befitting a king, and Styrbjorn takes it with gleaming eyes.

Bowls of honeyed berries, flats of fresh bread, stewed rabbit, and slices of suckling pig sweet and dripping are passed around the feast table. She eats some, but mostly she drinks from her tankard and watches the merriment unfold. She does not reflect the joy of her clansmen, for she can see what they do not - Sigurd is here in body, but his spirit is elsewhere. Thoughts of far-off shores darken his eyes, as a lover’s darkens just before a kiss. He is married to the sea, to glory awaiting him in foreign lands. He is not seeing the treasure before him, but imagining the treasure he might find on his next journey. He is dreaming of leaving again, and he has been ashore only two nights. Until it is time for him to take his place as king, he yearns to seek his own glory and greatness.

Even if it is without her. Even if he must leave her behind, time and again. She knows it is not by his choice, but it makes her ache all the same.

She sets her tankard down and leaves the great hall. She does not have the stomach for merrymaking. Fornburg is silent, save for the shouting and singing in the longhouse. The children and thralls are long since abed, and all others are drowning themselves in mead. She makes her way up the hill to the stables, where Astrid whickers and trots over to the fence in greeting. Eivor presses her cheek to the mare’s sleek one, her hand stroking the length of warm neck beneath a thick mane. There are footfalls behind her, and she knows without turning that it is Sigurd.

“It is not like you to leave the feast hall still able to stand,” he says, catching up to her and leaning against a fence post. “Are you well?”

“The mead does not sit well with me this night,” she lies. “I had hoped some fresh air might soothe my belly.”

“You left before I could give you your gift.” She can hear in his tone that he does not believe her. There is little she can hide from the man who knows her heart better than she knows it herself.

“I have no use for fancy bracelets or heavy chains. I am no lord or lady, to be trussed up like a roast swan.”

“You are certainly no lady,” he agrees, eyes glittering with amusement. “Which is why I have brought you  _ this.” _

She turns as he extends his hand in offering. He is holding a long recurve bow. She takes it hesitantly, weighing it in her hands. It is light, perfectly balanced. She pulls the string back and it flexes just enough that she knows there will be great power behind any arrow fired from it. The wood is a silvery ash, with bits of pewter filigree decorating it. It is a moonbeam, shaped into a bow - a beautiful and deadly thing, and she finds herself in awe of the craftsmanship.

“Brother,” she breathes, “where did you find such a weapon?”

“I took it from a king, who’s soft hands and cowardly heart had little use for it. Do you like it?”

Her eyes meet his before shifting away. There is an intensity in his gaze, and it is too much for her to bear. She must think of Randvi. Randvi, her friend. Her sister. Randvi, standing at the docks and waiting for the man who should be her husband.

“It is a beautiful and timely gift,” she manages to say. “I’m surprised an overgrown ox like you has an eye for such things.”

He laughs, shakes his head. “Ever the sharp of tongue, Eivor. You cut through me like a winter’s storm.”

“A gift of such magnitude must receive a gift in turn,” she tells him, setting the bow down to rest against the wooden fence. Her fingers carefully untie the knotted cord about her neck, and Sigurd’s eyes shine in the moonlight as she extends her gift to him.

“I cannot take such a prize from you,” his voice is gentle as the breeze that whispers through the grass at their feet. “Not one so hard-won.”

She does not answer, only takes his hand in her own and presses the shard of shield into his palm. For nine summers, it has hung about her neck. A reminder of her first victory. A promise to herself, that she would not always be weak and swaying under the weight of a sword. A piece of Sigurd, resting just over her heart. The wood is smooth and worn, sleek to the touch like an arrow’s shaft and the ghostly color of driftwood now. There was once a remnant of red paint on it, from the raven painted on the shield. It is long since gone, worn away against her skin and beneath her furs. She presses his fingers closed around her gift, a finality to the gesture. He allows her this boon, eyes never leaving her face.

“If I need another, I will simply shatter your shield again,” she grins, her chin lifted just enough to meet his gaze.

He waits, but she does not bend further. This is already too much, a foot too far out on the ice. It is tenuous and dangerous, and she must harden her heart to the field of red flowers blooming within it. He might think himself water and she a wall of stone, but this wall cannot be chipped away so easily - no matter how desperately it wishes it were a river. He sighs after a long moment. Then he leans over and encircles the back of her neck with his free hand, pulling her forward and kissing the top of her head. 

“Come back to the feast, little drengr. Let’s see who can drink the most mead and still remain standing.” 

She follows him back, hand self-consciously touching her crown of braids. She can feel the warmth of his kiss, still, and it heats her blood more thoroughly than any mead or battle might.

In this contest, she always wins. Dag tips over backwards first, Sigurd shortly after him, and Eivor raises her drinking horn high and howls like a wolf at the longhouse ceiling. Her drengr stomp their feet and pound the tables with closed fists. Randvi laughs and claps along with the skalds. Sigurd will leave soon for a place called Miklagard, but for this night - and hopefully a few still - he is one of the Ravens again. Eivor lends her voice to the others, then, their song a battlecry in its own right.

_ We beat and blazed our trail of red _

_ Till Odin gazed upon the dead _

_ Then horn resounds the mighty hall _

_ For those who fight, and those who fall _

_ For those who fight, and those who fall! _

  
  


-

  
  


What was it Dag said, before they struck out on this voyage?  _ Styrbjorn will have your hide for this, Wolf-Kissed. You’d best pray the gods are on your side this day, for if you come back empty handed there will be a price to pay for your disobedience.  _

_ By the time he notices we have gone, we’ll be on our way back with Kjotve’s head to decorate our mast,  _ was her retort. Bold words. Self-assured words. The information she’d beaten out of Kjotve’s spy had not proven to be entirely truthful. He was supposed to be here, sequestered on this isolated isle, with only a small contingent to guard him. It was no small contingent, but rather a small  _ army _ that awaited them. No sooner had their longship come ashore than Kjotve’s men were on them. The last two hours have been a battle for their lives, and she has fought with a ferocity to match Thor himself. She is not ready to meet the valkyries yet, and wills the doors of the corpse hall stay closed to her. She will not die. She refuses to. Not with Kjotve so close at hand.

Across the beach, she watches Dag fall beneath the onslaught of thee of Kjotve’s men. 

“No!” She roars, bashing her opponent in the face with the hilt of her sword. She is rewarded by the sound of crunching bone and a spray of blood to rival Kjotve’s banners as they whip in the wind. She leaps over tumbling bodies, ducks beneath swinging axes and around jabbing spears until she is at Dag’s side. They are kicking and beating him, and Dag is struggling to regain his feet. It is cowardly fighting, and she expects nothing less from men who would follow Kjotve the Cruel. She buries her sword in the back of one, grinning as ribs part beneath her blade.

“Synin, this one is for you!” She cries upward, freeing her sword and pivoting to slash at another. She is a whirlwind of death, and none shall stop her. Seventeen winters, she has waited for this day. Seventeen winters of dogging his every step, of killing a hundred men in place of him. Now, at last, he is close by - no doubt watching from a tower as his men fall like wheat before her. Tonight, the skalds will sing of how Kjotve fell beneath the blades of Eivor the Wolf Kissed. Her only regret is that Sigurd is not here to share in this victory. He has been gone nearly a year this time, and she could not wait to seize this opportunity. It is the closest she has ever come to her old enemy. She laughs aloud, frenzied joy filling her as she shoves the second man off her blade with one boot. “Get up, Dag! The battle has only just begun!”

A sharp pain hits her in the shoulder, and she stumbles momentarily. She looks down to see an arrow protruding from just beneath her collarbone. The shaft and feathers quiver from the force of impact. She snarls, battlelust dulling the pain almost immediately, and cuts away the protruding arrow with her word. She will deal with it later. For now, there is fighting to do. Dag is up on one knee, now, his shield retrieved and held up defensively as he staggers. He looks to Eivor, and his eyes go wide. The shout does not have time to leave his lips before the blow to the back of her head sends her tumbling forward. She rolls onto her back, groans as the arrowhead in her shoulder tears at her flesh, and struggles to focus on the figure looming over her. The world is fading to shades of dull grey and black, and the drumbeat of war carries off into the distance without her.

It is the cold that wakes her. A creeping cold, seeping into her bones from the frozen ground beneath her. The sort of biting cold that only the deep of a Norway winter has - crystallizing your blood should you stand still for more than a minute. Her face is stiff and aching from where it is pressed to the muddied snow. There is the taste of metal on her tongue from her bleeding nose and weeping split lip. She struggles to rise, and finds her hands are bound before her. Her shivering tells her enough. They have taken her gear, her armor and warm furs. She is left nothing but her tunic and trousers, and the boots on her feet.

“How long have you been chasing me, Wolf-Kissed? Seventeen winters? Eighteen?” The hard voice cuts through the air like a whip. It is a voice she has never forgotten, the memory as fresh as new tracks in snow.  _ Kjotve.  _ Boots enter her vision, and she manages to bring herself upright. She bites her savaged lip to keep from crying out at the pain in her shoulder. They have removed the arrow, though the wound burns from the damage done. Kjotve sees her discomfort and chuckles, bending low that she might hear his next words. His breath is hot and reeking of spirits against her face. “Do I now haunt your dreams? Do I warm your loins?”

She does not answer, only spits to the side. Blood and saliva fleck Kjotve’s fine leather boots, but he only laughs and straightens. 

“Do you remember this?” He asks, holding up an axe. The afternoon light gleams off the still-sharp blade. She recognizes it. Many times she watched her father wield it, and to see it in Kjotve’s hand now fills her with rage. Still, she says nothing. She makes her gaze as flat and empty as she can, despite the roiling fury in her belly.

“Your father’s axe,” he continues, ignoring her silence. “The weapon of a coward. A scorn-snake.” He lowers the axe, presses the blade of it to her neck, just beneath her jaw. He uses it to force her head up, to meet his amused eyes. She is little more to him than a rabbit in a snare. He wants to get a rise out of her, to see her spit and curse or beg for mercy. She can feel how sharp the blade is, as it bites into her skin like a hungry wolf. She gives him nothing. Flat, empty eyes. She will not die like a coward. Not like her father. He can kill her, kill her men, and it will not matter. They will go to Valhalla with honor.

“Few things would please me more than to kill you with this blade.” He paces around her, turning the axe over and over in his hand. “But I know you would defy me to the death, fighting for a glorious end.  _ That _ I will not allow.” He tosses the axe to one of his men. She catches a flash of light, sun striking the blade once more, before it is caught in another’s hands. He bends over again, and she averts her face. She stares instead at the ground, struggling to control her temper. He takes a fistful of her hair in one large hand, pulls her head back until she is forced to meet his eyes. Pain blooms in her shoulder as the tendons in her neck strain. “You will live your days enthralled as a slave. Humiliated. Your death will be a lonely one.” 

In this, he is wrong. She will kill any who attempt to claim her. She will die fighting, be it with a sword or a wooden stick. She allows a little smile, then, and for the spark of her fury to kindle in her eyes. He sees it and laughs, as though he knew it were there all along. He stands, kicks her back onto her side in the snow. The air in her lungs expels in a pain-filled gasp at the renewed agony in her shoulder.

“Kill the rest of her crew. Make them suffer,” he orders his men. “Eivor Wolf-Kissed is no more! That name is dead to this world!” He turns away then, and she watches him go. Her rage in this moment burns brighter and hotter than the sun. To come so far and still fail is a loss so great she thinks it might kill her surer than any sword.

“You’ll be worth your weight in silver,” a voice behind her says. The captain of the ship meant to take her to her fate, no doubt. A boot nudges her in the ribs. “Come on, get up. Onto the ship with you!”

She cannot kill Kjotve this day, but she makes the men who mean to transport her suffer in his stead. Blood stains the dock and the frozen water, and she stays only long enough to unlock her shackles and steal the fur from the dead captain’s back. He will have no use for it beyond Helheim’s gates. She will rescue her men, and they will limp their way back to Fornburg once more. Beaten, but not defeated. There is breath in her lungs yet, and as long as it is so, she will lend it to felling Kjotve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I wanted to say thank you to all who are reading this and being so sweet with your kudos and comments. Wow. It was unexpected. I know this ship isn't a popular one, but from the very beginning of the game I had a major crush on Sigurd. I played my game with my heart fully dedicated to him, and this fic is my guilty pleasure in lieu of what Ubi denied me. It's truly a marvel that so many see what I see and are happy to join me in this journey. So, from the bottom of my Sigurd-addled heart, thank you.
> 
> The scene where we first meet grown-up Eivor and she doesn't respond to Kjotve's words at all is honestly one of my favorite scenes in the entire game. I can't get enough of it. It says SO much about her, and I have been wanting to write it out for some time. I'm kind of loving being in her head, and I hope I am giving her the credit she deserves.


	5. Chapter 5

Dag does not speak to her much on the long journey home. It is a fact that surprises her, considering he often has scathing judgements at the ready where her failures are concerned. He likes to remind her she is nowhere near the warrior their beloved Sigurd is, and takes joy in her furrowed brow. No doubt he has decided Styrbjorn’s wroth will be a fitting enough chastisement, and he rows with the rest of the other men in peace. She does not miss the occasional smug sideways glances he casts her way. Beneath her gear, her body aches. The wound in her shoulder has slowed its bleeding, though it pains her greatly. She licks her lips, and her torn lip burns from the salt of the sea. Fornburg is ahead, low clouds skimming the high mountains that surround it. They will be home soon, and she will numb her shoulder with herbs and her heart with mead.

Randvi takes one look at Eivor in the doorway of her room and rises from her chair with a sigh, setting aside the letter she is writing and retrieving her kit of supplies. Eivor shrugs off her heavy wolfskin cloak, and her armor beneath it. She grunts from the effort of it, sweat beading on her brow as new pain blossoms in her shoulder. She pours herself a cup of mead, drinking it down in four deep gulps before braving Randvi’s needle.

“You did not find what you were seeking,” Randvi observes as she cleans the wound and begins stitching.

“No,” Eivor replies through gritted teeth. “But I was closer than I have ever been.” She closes her eyes as stars spark across the horizon of her vision. Randvi works quickly, but the mead has done little to dull Eivor’s senses.

“As often as I patch you up, I should start charging you for my services,” Randvi chides, tying off the last stitch. “I’d have a hoard to rival the gods by now. Be sure to keep this clean and dry, else it will fester. There is no honor in death by fevered flesh.”

“I am not so easily slain. Come, Randvi, where is your faith in me?”

Randvi smiles, though the warmth does not meet her eyes. “We thought we’d lost you, Eivor. For good, this time. You’ve become as bad as your brother, leaving without word and sending only rumors of your death back. Now you darken my doorstep as you always do, looking half-dead and like reddened shit, and expect me to ignore the circumstances.”

“There is nothing left to say, except that the men who delayed me are dead.” She grits her teeth as Randvi snips the twine none too gently.

“I have spent many tiresome days calming the rages of our king,” Randvi chastises. “He is not too happy with you.”

“Like a short flame, he will burn brightly and then go out. Just as he always does. Besides, with Sigurd sighted outside of Stavanger, he will be along soon enough to temper what remains of Styrbjorn’s wrath.”

Randvi folds her arms, holding Eivor’s gaze. “We thought we’d lost you, Eivor.  _ I _ thought I’d lost you.”

“Randvi, dear friend, I am none the worse for my journey.” Evior rises from her stool, places a hand on each of Randvi’s shoulders. “When it is my time to meet Odin, there is no amount of well-wishing that will bar my way. Until then, let us eat and drink and think of the future.”

Randvi softens, as she always does where Eivor is concerned, her lips curving into a reluctant smile. “Shall we wait at the docks for Sigurd, or would you rather we see if Styrbjorn will see you now?”

“Who did you say was meeting with him?”

Randvi shrugs. “Some messenger from the North. He tells me nothing of his endeavors, but I can feel an ill wind blowing. He is up to something, Eivor. There has been much whispering behind closed doors in your absence.”

She is lost in thought, and does not answer immediately. She is remembering the battle. She is remembering her bound wrists and the blade of her own father’s axe, pressed to her throat by the man she hates most in this world. Of all the times she has been denied Kjotve’s death, this one is the most infuriating. Mere steps away, and she was still too weak to bring him to his knees. Honor is once more beyond her grasp, a flitting thing on the wind. She turns to leave, and is stayed by Randvi’s hand grasping hers. 

“Eivor, a cloud hangs over you. Is something wrong?”

“You have a nose like a snow fox, Randvi,” she tells her friend. “Were I the last winter berry in a frost, you’d sniff me out.”

“I will pretend that is meant to be a compliment.”

“A compliment to you, as it is a commentary on the stink of battle yet on me.” Eivor pulls her hand free of Randvi’s, then reaches back and frees Varin’s axe from beneath her heavy cloak. Randvi’s eyes take in the weapon, not understanding. “We killed many of Kjotve’s men yesterday,” Eivor says. “And I found this. It is my father’s axe, returned to me. Seeing it again… After seventeen long winters… It stirred something in me. A feeling I have not had since the day he was killed. Since I day I got… this.” She tilts her head, baring her throat, and gestures at the knotted scar tissue.

“Memories of past agonies. Of sadness and pain.” Randvi’s eyes, clear and bright as a summer sky, shine with empathy. “You should speak to Valka. Perhaps she can help you sort out this ache of your spirit.”

“Perhaps,” she agrees. “I will go now, while Styrbjorn is busy stirring his pot of secrets.”

  
  


-

  
  


“You will betray your brother, Sigurd,” Valka insists. “That is the meaning of your vision.”

“That cannot be right. I would never betray Sigurd. He is -” She pauses, searching for words. “He is my family.”

“The Nornir have spoken, and this is their message.”

_“No._ This is wrong. Or you misunderstand. That cannot be right.” She turns her back on the woman, strides to the window and stares out at the clear day. Sun gleams off snow. No blizzard. No portents of doom. No great wolf.

“You  _ will  _ betray Sigurd.” Valka’s voice is firm, though not without compassion.

“Odin fought against his fate,” she growls over her shoulder. “It can be done, and I shall do the same.” She pushes aside the curtain of bone charms roughly, making them clank and clatter as she strides from Valka’s hut.

The words hang over her like a stormcloud on the ride back to Fornburg. She came here for answers, for reassurances that might soothe her troubled spirit, but instead she is given omens and riddles that only add to the burden in her heart. She understands, now, the tales of the madness that gripped Odin in his struggle to fight against his fate. He would not lie down and accept it, whatever the cost. Nor will she accept hers. She will not betray Sigurd. She will be at his side, always, whatever may come. She will do this because she loves him. Because above all others, he has always been with her through the eye of every storm. He will be home soon, and there is comfort in that thought. To see him again, to touch him, will brush away these clouds in her mind.

-

Styrbjorn is speaking to a man she does not recognize when she enters the longhouse. He spies her at the door, and nods to the man before him.

“May the winds favor your voyage, Guthorm,” he says to his guest by way of dismissal. The man called Guthorm inclines his head respectfully before turning and striding out of the longhouse. She locks eyes with him as he passes, taking note of his fine furs and well-made armor. If she were made to guess, she would say he is a servant to a great man. The muted green of his tunic matches the colors of King Harald, and the realization stirs unease in her.

“Eivor,” the crack of Styrbjorn’s voice demands her attention. “Come forward, and explain in plain words why you have willfully disobeyed my commands. Do you mock me?”

She approaches him slowly, as a wolf might approach a great wounded beast with antlers that gore. Soft though he may have grown in his time as king, Styrbjorn is no less formidable. His height and breadth are gifts passed down to Sigurd, though his hair is a dull brown shot through with threads of cloud-gray. Years of feasts and mead and prosperity have diminished the hard lines of muscle, replacing the body of a warrior with that of a complacent king.

“I do not mock you, king,” she says, though she cannot bring herself to bow so much as her head. There is only one man worthy of her fealty, and he is aboard his longship yet. “I only mean to embolden you… against your enemies, and your own poor judgement.”

Styrbjorn slams his cup down, mead sloshing over his knuckles. “You know nothing of my judgement. You know nothing of my plans and strategies.”

“Sigurd would agree with me.” She is aware she is jabbing at a bear with a spear in this moment, but she is beyond caution. Her most recent brush with Kjotve has consumed her, made her long for his death in a way that is all-encompassing.

“My son might agree with you, but  _ he _ would obey me. He knows his place.” 

She folds her arms. “Not as well as he knows his father.”

Styrbjorn sighs, leans forward in his great chair. “Imagine you are harassed by an enemy with warriors that vastly outnumber your own. What profit does open war bring? Would it not be better to work quietly, through diplomacy, gaining alliances? Waiting until the day our numbers outweigh our enemy’s, and our victory is guaranteed?”

It is hard for her to look at him and see a man worthy of his crown. To see the greatness he once wielded, now hidden beneath warm furs. There is no glory in whispers and handshakes behind closed doors. Odin himself would laugh at this man before her, who dreams of diplomacy and alliances. He is Sigurd’s father, but Sigurd is so much more.

“Do we not have any allies to speak of? Or is that your excuse to do nothing?”

“Your confidence blinds you to so much in plain sight, Eivor,” he says, rising from his chair and towering over her from the platform it rests on. “Day and night I toil to forge ties with the clans to the north. Very soon, you will see the fruits of my efforts. Only then will you understand.”

“Is that all?” She meets his eyes unflinchingly, lets him see the contempt she feels for his efforts.

“I’m at a loss with you, Eivor.” His looks tired and sad, rage giving way to something like regret. “When I took you in as my own, never did I imagine such disrespect from the child of Varin. Your father was a fine man. Just, and loyal to me. He died bravely that we might live.”

“He died a coward, lord. A fate I will not mirror.” 

“Why do you carry such a useless burden?” He demands. “Let it go. Think only of the days to come. Of your future, and the victories at hand.”

She shakes her head. He has forgotten what it means to be a Viking. To fight with honor, and die with an axe in hand. Too many years, he has sat on his throne and wielded a quill rather than an axe. A throne secured for him with her father’s cowardice. He has lost his way, and cannot see the path of a true king. 

“My honor has been stained,” she tells him. “Until it is wiped clean, I want nothing else.”

His eyes darken, and the wind leaves him like a storm suddenly passing. He is tired from battling her will, and his shoulders slump beneath the fury of her gaze. “I refuse to pick at that wound again. But if there is something that can chase these shadows from your thoughts--” 

“Sigurd has come!” Randvi’s voice cries from the longhouse door. “Down at the docks! His ship is here!”

A thousand ravens take flight in her chest at the outcry, and she has no more words for Styrbjorn as she runs from the feast hall and down the frozen path to the dock. Perhaps it is her father’s axe on her back. Perhaps it is the remnants of melancholy from her failure to kill Kjotve once again, or the shadow of Valka’s words that still hang over her. Whatever the reason, she has never needed Sigurd so badly in all her life. When he is at her side, the shades of a time past that whisper at her ears fall away and there is only him. She checks her pace at the edge of the docks, wary of the strangers that now stand beside his boat. They are strange men, dark of hair and bronze of skin. They wear armor unlike any she has ever seen. They are alien in their otherworldliness, and she does not know them. She walks forward cautiously, eyes flitting from Sigurd to the strangers.

“Eivor!” Sigurd’s cry is that of a great horn, echoing across the distance between them as soon as he spies her. “Look at you, blood-soaked drengr! Have you been warring without me?” He hops down from the longship, arms outstretched and joy blazing in his eyes. She realizes she is wearing her still-bloody and torn tunic, breeches, and her swordbelt. She must look a sight, bruised and beaten from her ordeal at Kjotve’s hands. Even Randvi’s capable fingers can only do so much. Time must do the rest.

She meets him halfway, her pained shoulder screaming in protest as his powerful arms encircle her, squeezing the breath from her as he lifts her several inches off the ground. She prays Randvi’s stitches will hold as she returns his embrace with equal measure, wrapping her arms about his shoulders and grasping tight fistfuls of his furs. He smells of the sea. Of rain, and sweat, and damp leather and heated skin. Somehow, he is always hot - a glowing fire warm against her cold cheek. She is Embla, and he is Odin - breathing life into her.

“And you, salt-cured vikingr!” She retorts, not wishing to let him go but allowing him to dislodge her, holding her at arm’s length for inspection. “I smell the stink of a dozen kingdoms in your beard.”

He bumps the curve of her cheekbone with his knuckles gently, a gesture he made often when she was half his height but no less loved. Then his hands frame her face, cradling it, and for a moment she is paralyzed with the fear he has forgotten himself. Does he mean to kiss her? Surely he would not, here on the docks and in front of all these people. The more unsettling part of her is the one that does not wish to protest such a thing, despite Randvi’s presence close behind her. 

“It is only the beginning,” he whispers fiercely, shaking her slightly. His fingertips are buried in her hair, his eyes locked on hers, and she burns for him. Burns as bright and hot as a spark from the bosom of Muspelheim. She is afraid to look down, for fear her skin is ash and embers and might crumble away. He is still her Sigurd, but there is more to him somehow. There is a light in his eyes, an ambition and a desire she has never seen before. She wonders if he has at last found the thing he has searched for all these years.

There is a polite cough, and she is aware once more of the world around her and of the strangers at his side. A cold snake of foreboding slithers up her spine as she inspects them once more. She cannot say why, but in this moment she senses danger. Perhaps it is a warning from the gods.

“Ah, Randvi, my dear wife.” His eyes have shifted to a point over her shoulder, cooling in temperature, and he releases Eivor to greet Randvi. He places a gentle kiss on each of her cheeks, their bodies distant and stiff. Diplomats, in a formal greeting. “Your husband returns, bearing gifts and riches to share.”

“And new friends, I see.” Randvi looks pointedly towards the two strangers on the dock, before sharing a troubled look with Eivor.  _ She feels it, too,  _ Eivor realizes.  _ She senses something amiss in him. He is not the Sigurd who last left.  _

“Yes!” He exclaims, turning as though he has forgotten them. “Basim and Hytham. We met in Miklagard, and they showed me her buried secrets.”

Basim bows slightly to first Eivor and then Randvi. “We are grateful to Sigurd for his invitation, and eager to pay tribute to your king.”

Again, a cold finger of warning chills her as she meets Basim’s eyes. Despite his strange appearance and his land or origin being unfamiliar to her, she cannot help but distrust him at once. There is something in his eyes she does not like, and were she a wolf the fur at her back would be on end.

“My brother is always careful with the company he keeps,” she offers. “If you are standing safely beside him, he must like you.”

Basim smiles at that, and though it is an easy gesture and his soft brown eyes belie nothing but warmth, she feels she might sooner join Ragnar Lothbrok in Aella’s serpent pit than trust him.

Sigurd pulls her into his side, an arm around her shoulders once more. “Save the introductions for after our bellies are full! I will see my father now, tell him of my time away.”

“You are always thinking with your belly,” she laughs, jabbing him in the gut. “Be careful, lest you grow too fat and cannot fit into your fine furs any longer.” He gasps loudly, feigning injury, and squeezes her more tightly to him. 

Randvi stands to the side of the dock, looking somewhat forlorn. Eivor catches her hand as they walk past, dragging her friend along with her. She does not miss the grateful smile that is only for her, or the cloak of sorrow that falls away like cobwebs being brushed aside. She cannot change Randvi’s fate, but she can lessen the burden of it. Just as Randvi lessens the burden of her own.


	6. Chapter 6

The thatch of the stable roof is not as soft as she remembers it, bits of straw and stick poking her through the soft leather of her breeches as she shifts and adjusts. Both she and Sigurd’s legs dangle over the edge, his much longer than hers. There is a pitcher of mead between them, though it is near-empty now. The feast has been roaring on for an hour, and drunken laughter carries out over the crystal-clear night air. It has been too long since they sat like this. Far too long. Sigurd pours her another cup as she tells him of her adventures while he was away. He frowns when she reaches the part with the battle against Kjotve’s men, and her capture.

“You should have waited for me. He could have killed you while you were on your knees, waiting for an axe to fall.” He is reproving, but she hears the relief in his voice as well.

“If it is my day to die, then it is my day to die. Valka told me…. She said the gods favor me. Perhaps that is why I yet live.”

He studies her face quietly for a moment, before drinking from his cup once more. “There is wisdom in her words. You fight like Thor, but bear the wisdom and patience of Freyja. A raven graces your shoulder, as Huginn and Muninn grace Odin’s. By all the signs, you are truly marked by them. No doubt they are watching your saga unfold with interest.”

“Do not say that, Sigurd. Knowing I am being watched makes my arse itch.”

“That explains all the scratching when we were younger,” he muses, to which she laughs and shoves him.

She wishes she had the courage to tell him more of Valka’s words. They trouble her mind, and despite its sweetness she finds her mead bitter to the tongue. She cannot bring herself to tell him of this terrible thing she has seen, for she fears to speak of it would be to make it come true.  _ You will betray Sigurd,  _ the words echo in her heart once more.

“Valka had words for me once,” he muses, fingers stroking his beard thoughtfully. It has darkened with age, not quite as bright and red-gold as in his youth. “On a night not unlike this.”

“When did you go to her?” She asks him, surprised. This is the first he has ever spoken of it.

“Some time ago,” he admits. “After a wolf hunt left me chasing my own tail.” 

Her cup freezes midway to her lips, and she is afraid to look at him. She knows to which hunt he refers. There is no mistaking the tone in his voice. He is teasing her.

_ We are too much alike. You are a wall of stone, but I… am water. Water wears away stone. All it needs is time.  _

“And what cryptic words did Valka have for you? Was it more of her addled words without true meaning? Shadows in the dark?”

“She told me I would have no sons to bear my name. That my destiny is not the one I thought to live, and that a day will come when my friends are my enemies, and my enemies are my friends.” His voice is somber, and then he laughs softly at his own words, dismissing them. “As you said, addled words without true meaning.”

“Crow-cursed seer, clouding the waters of our minds further,” she agrees, draining the last of her cup.

“Is that all she said to you? That you are favored by the gods?” 

“That, and little else I could make sense of. Seers do not speak plainly, but twist about like a snake in your hand.” Her ears grow hot under his scrutiny, and she does not meet his eyes. “It is good to have you back, Sigurd.”

“I have missed this terribly,” he says, clapping her on the back. She does not wince, though once again she is reminded of the arrow so recently buried in her shoulder. His hand remains just a moment longer than necessary, and she welcomes it. “When I first met Basim, I regaled him with tales of our homeland. It was then I felt a hard longing to return at once. The spiced wines of his homeland lose their sweetness when you cannot be there to share them with me.”

“If you had brought me, I’d not have shared such a thing,” she laughs.

“Come with me,” Sigurd demands suddenly, swinging his legs and leaping down onto the ground below. “I have a gift for you. One truly befitting you this time.”

“What is it this time? A mighty axe? A great bear I might ride into battle?” She follows him, abandoning the pitcher. 

She is not too far off on her guess. Basim, Sigurd’s strange new friend, gifts her a hidden blade like the one both he and Hytham wear on their wrists. It is a sacred tool of their order, and Hytham seems displeased with her possession of it. She eyes their mutilated hands, each missing a finger to make way for the razor-edged blade, and puts it on facing the other way. 

“The blade should ride on the underside of your arm,” Basim tells her. “To conceal it from your target.”

She laughs. “I have no wish to hide this. And I would rather not make the same mistake the two of you have.” She gestures at their hands, with their missing fingers. Basim smiles knowingly, inclining his head. She deploys the blade, testing the spring-loaded mechanism.

“What do you think?” Sigurd has only eyes for her, watching in enjoyment at the spectacle.

“I like it,” she grins. 

“A good start, Eivor,” Basim interjects. “But you must learn how to use it effectively.”

Sigurd’s fingers graze the small of her back, as he leans in close to them. “Outside. This is not for all eyes.”

She takes her time familiarizing herself with this foreign blade. Basim instructs her on the ways of his Hidden Ones, striking from shadows and leaping from heights. She allows him to share his knowledge, though she has no desire to fight in such a way. There is no honor in striking at an unsuspecting flank, or cutting an enemy down from behind. The warriors who have earned their place in Valhalla did not slip among river reeds like snakes, nor burrow under bushes like rabbits. Basim is pleased with her progress, and once he is satisfied she has enough familiarity with the blade that she might not stab herself, he bows and takes his leave of her. Hytham follows, looking back at Eivor over his shoulder with worried eyes. He is young, the fire of conviction still bright in him. Her possession of the blade concerns him, even offends him. Basim seems to be the more practical of the two. He is more like her; doing what must be done to achieve an end without a quiver or a plea. That, she can understand and respect.

Sigurd approaches her, distracting her from poking more holes in a straw dummy. “Let us walk to the docks and take in the night air,” he tells her. 

She retracts the hidden blade. “You are merciful to spare this one, lord.”

“No doubt he is all but pissing himself,” Sigurd agrees, raising an eyebrow at the straw littering the ground. As they walk, he asks, “What do you think of my new friends?”

_ I do not trust them, and believe the gods wish us to be careful,  _ she wants to say. “They seem generous and menacing, in equal measure.” Is the reply she gives him instead.

“I know what you mean. And they have learning, too. They wield numbers and writing as if it were magic. Basim has shown me so much of the world. All of which I will share with you... When the time is right.” Sigurd stops at the dock’s edge, setting his torch in an empty brazier. His words trouble her further.  _ When the time is right?  _ There was a time they shared everything, and now a great divide seems to stretch out before them, sudden and yawning like the maw of a great dragon.

He spreads his arms wide, taking in a long and deep breath of the cold sea air. “Ah, but I missed the smell of this land.”

“You could smell it always, if you would only stay in one place.” She nudges him in the ribs gently. “Have you returned for good, or is your next voyage to join this shadowy brotherhood of theirs?”

“Leave all that aside, Eivor,” he tells her, dismissive of her concern. He cups her chin, lifts her face to meet his. “Tonight, we are together again. The here and now is what matters.”

“You ask much of me,” she answers.

“The skies of Miklagard are bright and unhindered by clouds or mist, but they are not so blue as the rings of frost the gods gave you for eyes.” He does not relinquish his hold on her chin, and she remains perfectly still beneath his gaze. “I think perhaps I missed them the most.”

“Do you mean to write poetry for the skalds to sing, now?” She chides.

“Must you always cast me aside so cruelly?” The warmth in his eyes tells her the words are not meant to bite, and he releases her at last, turning back towards the sea. She reaches out, takes his hand in hers. He does not turn his head, but his fingers, strong and warm, curl about her own in response.

“From here to Valhalla, I will always be at your side, Sigurd. Always.”

“I know.” He squeezes her fingers, the pressure reassuring. For the first time all day, Valka’s words are quiet and still and do not nip at her like bitter frost. “This fjord has grown too small to contain me, or I too large. There is so much more beyond these stony fangs that rise around us. England, Ireland, Francia. All greener pastures, ripe for the plucking.”

He turns, catching up her other hand in his free one. “Tomorrow, we make new war on Kjotve. We will reclaim the lands he has taken from us, and from there… we build a kingdom. For us.” There is a sweetness to that last word, emphasized by the way he grips her hands in his. She wishes for her gloves, for fear he can feel her pulse quicken through her fingers at his declaration.

_ He means for the clan. Be still, you fool,  _ she whispers to the heart that hammers beneath her breastbone.  _ He is to be king, and means to build a proper kingdom for his Ravens. Nothing more.  _

“I am with you,” she manages to say through a throat that means to choke her. “Only say the word.”

He grins at her, raises her hands up and presses the backs of them to his chest. She should pull away, but she doesn’t. Not yet.  _ “Good. _ Get some rest, my little drengr. At first light, we begin our saga.”

The gods grant her sincerest wish that night. Her dreams are of a field of red flowers and a man who smells of salt and sea, with lips sweeter than cloudberry mead. In her dreams, she can allow this. In her dreams, there is no dishonor in pressing her lips to a broad chest criss-crossed with scars, or in burying her hands in a sea of red and gold hair that slips between her fingers like silk. She cannot see Randvi’s despairing eyes, nor can Valka’s words reach her here. Their bodies intertwine like sea birds in the sky, diving and twisting and plummeting. Together they build a kingdom in the way of Ymir. Her hair becomes rippling fields of grain, his bright eyes the stars that stud the heavens. Their bodies are the hills and valleys, field and stone. Her cries are a countless songbirds, bursting forth to darken the skies. Her name on his lips is the cracking of thunder, and her tears - they are the rains that nourish an endless sea of bobbing red flowers, velvet petals jewel-bedecked with dew. Their kingdom is beautiful, and it is for them and only them.

When she wakes, her cheeks are damp with tears and her damaged lip burns and stings from the salt of them. She allows the pain rather than wiping it away. It reminds her of the truth. That she may only have what she wants most when she walks the realm of dreams.

  
  


-

  
  


Sigurd’s hand is at the back of her neck, gripping her tightly. Their foreheads are pressed together, their sweat and the blood of the fallen mingling where they meet.

“Are you ready, Wolf-Kissed? Ready to wet your axe with Kjotve’s blood?”

She is breathing hard, though it is not from battle-weariness. She has never felt more alive, more strong. Odin is with her this night, each swing of her axe a tribute to him. She bares her teeth, and knows the terrible light in Sigurd’s eyes is reflected in her own.

“They will write songs about his death,” she laughs, “and of Eivor Wolf-Kissed, the one who slew him.”

“That’s my little drengr!” Sigurd laughs, kissing her on the forehead and releasing her. “Send that bacraut to Helheim!”

Kjotve emerges from his fort, one axe raised high. “Sigurd Whoreson!” He bellows across the distance. “You slink around my walls like a thief in the night! Face me here, now!” 

Eivor steps forward. “The fight is mine, Kjotve!” She roars back. “Sigurd is only here to watch me feed your innards to my raven.” She has abandoned her twin swords. In her hand gleams Varin’s axe, newly sharpened by Gunnar. On her left arm, she carries a heavy shield - sporting a red-painted raven. Tonight, she represents what was lost as well as what the future holds. Tonight, Kjotve dies so the Raven clan might rise. 

Kjotve’s eyes glance skyward, observing Synin as she makes lazy swoops and loops overhead. His lips curl back in disgust. “Look at this!” He yells, the words for his men. “Once again, Eivor Wolf-Kissed appears to take a swipe at me!”

She turns to face her people. Her clan. Those she has fought and bled alongside all these years. Sigurd watches, eyes glittering fiercely. Dag is at his right hand, with Basim and Hytham flanking him. Though Hytham’s eyes are pensive as always, Basim’s gleam with approval. A thirst for vengeance is something he understands, his gaze tells her. 

“This is my father’s shame,” she tells the assembled warriors. Her words are for only them, even as Kjotve bawls and howls like a drunken fool for his men’s benefit. “Today I get back the honor he lost.” She raises her voice now, that all may hear - be they under Harald’s banner, or Raven, or Wolf. She points her axe at Kjotve. “I call a holmgang! Here, against the oath-breaker!” 

“I will make you beg as your father begged, Wolf-Kissed!” Kjotve laughs. “Squeal, as your mother squealed!”

His words are meant to get beneath her skin, a sharp knife to cut away at her flesh and whittle at her resolve. She is calm as she faces him now. Seventeen winters, she has trained and fought and waited for this moment. Seventeen long and bitter winters. She is favored by the gods, and this day is their gift to her. Sigurd is at her back, calling her name to glory. She spreads her arms in welcome, laughs at the sky, and then she is running - running across the field of snow and mud and bone. Behind her, the Raven clan beats sword and axe upon shield in a hearty cadence. It is a drumbeat, urging her on to glory and honor.

Kjotve swings first, one heavy Dane axe whistling past her cheek as she ducks and rolls out of the way. She is up in a flash, and Varin’s axe bites into the mail of Kjotve’s hauberk. He is fast, despite his great size. He is already swinging again, the other axe coming around. She darts out of the way, and the blade skims one of her braids rather than her neck. Freyja has granted her fleetness of foot, and she twists gracefully out of his way again. 

“You are weak like your father was weak,” Kjotve sneers, pressing towards her. “You dance better than you fight.”

He swings again, and she brings her axe up and into his side once more, the same place as her first blow. Chainmail buckles beneath the blade of her axe, and she grins at the sight of blood on it. Kjotve cuffs her with the back of one heavy gauntlet. It is a powerful blow, and her head snaps back as she stumbles. Her split lip is reopened, fresh blood painting her chin. He follows up with another hit, one heavy boot striking her solidly in the chest. She stumbles back from the force of it, rolls, then springs to her feet again. Both axes arc towards her and she spins, following her dodge with a blow to his left bicep. Kjotve roars in pain as Eivor’s axe bites flesh, and the axe in his hand tumbles away, useless.

She circles him now, a raven flitting on gusts of wind about an angry and bleeding wolf. He swings and she blocks, the wood of her shield groaning but holding beneath the force of his blows. He swings again, and she meets the blow with her shield. Her shoulder should ache, the flesh still knitting from the arrow, but she cannot feel it. She only feels the pulse of her heart and the thrum of battle lust. Varin’s axe, light and sharp and deadly, carves through the last of the links in his weakened mail. Thrice battered, the chainmail gives - and the blade sinks deeply into Kjotve’s side.

He reacts before she can yank it free. He lifts her with powerful arms as though she were little more than a sack of grain, and charges forward with her pinioned to his chest. She realizes, now, he has been pushing her closer and closer to the edge of a deep pit. She struggles, but his grip is like iron. They plummet over the edge, slamming into the ground below. The breath is forced from her lungs, her head snapping against hardened earth, but the landing has dislodged her enemy as well. He has rolled to some ten paces away, though she can see he is already rising, his terrible strength spurring him on. She gasps for air, struggling to rise in time to evade his next attack, when something flashes in her peripherals.

Hytham leaps from the edge of the pit, and in that moment she can see just how quick and deadly the Hidden Ones can be. For one frozen moment he is suspended in the air, and she can hear the metallic  _ snick  _ of his blade as it extends. He wants Kjotve, and out of fear of Eivor failing in her task he has decided to strip her of her one chance at reclaiming honor. Kjotve has seen him, too, turning to face the attack with fists curled. She realizes Hytham is making a terrible mistake.

“Hytham, no!” She cries, but she is too late. 

Kjotve easily dodges the wrist blade, seizing Hytham mid-trajectory and using his own strength as well as the young warrior’s momentum to propel him headlong into one of the high, rough walls of the pit. He crashes into the mud and stone and falls to the bottom of the pit, silent and unmoving. His sacrifice has bought her time. Her shield is still strapped to her arm, and her father’s axe lies on the ground an arm’s length away. She picks it up once more, staggering to her feet. A renewed lust for vengeance floods her veins, bolstered by the sight of Hytham’s limp form. Kjotve snarls upon seeing her standing, and picks up one of his dead men’s axes.

“A shameful trick, Wolf-Kissed,” he jeers. “You are your father’s child.”

He launches himself at her once more, and the roar of the crowd surrounding the pit is drowned out only by the sound of steel clashing against steel. Her shield shatters beneath the onslaught, and she parries with Varin’s axe as she shakes her arm free of the remaining straps and broken wood. She has fought many men in her years as a drengr, but none have ever hit so hard as Kjotve. He is a cruel and hateful man, but his raw power is all but unmatched. He is also growing tired, the blows coming fewer and less frequent. Such is the consequence of one’s rise to power. The path of glory makes you strong, but leaving others to defend your rule weakens you. She can hear the whistle of his labored breath through clenched teeth.

“What is it, greybeard? Do the years wear on you?” She goads him, doubling her own blows and forcing him to tire further with each parry.

All she needs is one slip, one opening, and at last it comes. He swings and she parries, her axe swinging up again quickly and embedding in the crook of his right arm. Tendons and muscle part beneath her Gunnar-blessed blade, and Kjotve’s eyes go wide in surprise. He drops his axe once more, and his ruined arm makes no move to catch it. She seizes him by his chest strap, yanks him forward, and slips the hidden blade between his ribs as easily as she might skewer a juicy roast chicken. Kjotve falls to his knees, but she does not let him go. Not yet. She holds his bulk upright, gloved fist wrapped about the leather strap, until Helheim claims his spirit and his eyes cloud over, never to see again. Synin will feast well this night.

Her world goes black, then, as black as it must have been before Ymir’s first breath. Then fog rolls in; billowing clouds of mist that taste like the thunder of battle and the silence of death. For a moment, she reaches into the fog with searching hands, fingers splayed. Black water covers her boots, laps at her ankles like hungry fish. Her breath fogs out white in the frigid air. Is she dead? Did one of Kjotve’s men strike her down, even as she delivered the killing blow? She can hear the flapping of great wings, and searches the dark unknown for Synin.

A voice speaks to her from the shadows.

_ “Rise, Eivor… And awaken.” _

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this fic is ruining my life. LOL. I can't sleep. I keep waking up, thinking about it. xD


	7. Chapter 7

Sigurd turns as soon as she enters the longhouse, as though sensing her presence. He eyes her warily, inspecting her for bloodied weapons or injury.

“Eivor, tell me Gorm still lives.” He sounds resigned and reproachful, though unsurprised. She would feel shame if not for the entire lack of it. She raises her hand, displaying the newly broken skin of her knuckles. She’d done her best to all but kill Gorm with one strike, and though the crawling worm had walked away with little more than a broken nose, the act itself had been immeasurably satisfying.

“It pains me to say he does.”

Sigurd places a hand on her shoulder, reassuring fingers pressing through her furs. “Thank you. His day will come, I promise.” He turns back towards the proceedings. Harald is upon the dais, and from the sounds of it he is busy reciting his pedigree to those gathered. “Gods, but I hate long speeches.”

“Only when you’re not giving them,” she snorts.

His eyes narrow, and she knows in this moment he is wishing he held a handful of mud again. She lets the smug smile rest on her lips, though her eyes focus now on Harald as he strides back and forth on the dais. Harald the Fairhair, they call him. It is an aptly given name. He is young and handsome, with long and flaxen hair that is far lovelier than any blushing young maid’s. In truth, she knows little of him, save for stories from other drengr or skalds. Styrbjorn thinks highly of him, and that is enough to leave Eivor feeling reluctant to know him better. It is said he is ambitious and wise, a man worthy of Halfdan the Black’s legacy. Some even say he has risen above his father’s reputation, a greater man by his own right. She can understand that, looking from him to Sigurd. Sigurd, who is a combination of strength and reason and the passion of a true vikingr. She cannot imagine him growing old and fat upon a mighty chair as his father has.

“...I dream of something greater,” Harald is saying now. “A vast kingdom of warriors, in numbers the world has never seen. United under one king. One rule.”

In unison, Eivor and Sigurd fold their arms across their chests and straighten. She remembers Guthorm leaving the longhouse, only to turn up later alongside his king with an offer of an army. She remembers Randvi’s words.  _ He is up to something, Eivor.  _

“Too much blood has been spilt fighting one another,” Harald goes on. “Today we unify, and turn our blades outward to conquer new lands. And who better to lead us to glory than me? I was blooded before the age of ten, and I led the greatest army Norway has ever seen. But they say an honest king seeks wise counsel. So I ask, who among you rejects this new arrangement?”

Hjorr Halfsson is the first to step forward, his wife Ljufvina at his side. “I am not your enemy, King Harald, but I will not be your subject. Tomorrow, we sail for greener shores, and so my kingdom is yours.”

Eivor seeks Sigurd’s eyes, but his gaze is elsewhere as the events unfold. His stare is fixed across the great hall, locked on Styrbjorn where he is seated at a table.  _ He is wondering where his father stands in this,  _ she thinks.  _ And I have failed to warn him of Guthorm’s presence on our lands.  _

“My king!” A familiar voice calls.  _ Gorm.  _ “I offer you my axe and my oath. Ironclad.”

With half his face a mass of scars, and his bent nose and remaining eye swollen and purpled, she thinks she has seen better surfaces on a well-traveled battle road. The sight of her handiwork is pleasing, though his presence here is an offense.

“Gorm Kjotvesson. You dare show your face in this hall? Did not king Styrbjorn and his son Sigurd rid our lands of your foulness?” Harald’s words elicit a handful of chuckles and guffaws from the gathered crowd.

“Doesn’t he means _you and I?”_ Sigurd scoffs, quiet enough that only Eivor might hear it.

“The Raven clan dishonored me, great king!” Gorm protests, pointing an accusing finger in Eivor and Sigurd’s direction. “They poisoned my father, Kjotve! They made a mockery of his honorable death.”

“Bacraut! You lie!” She roars, unable to hold her tongue any longer. Sigurd places a hand on her arm, holding her where she stands.

“Hold Eivor,” he orders quietly. “Let it play out.”

Harald frowns. “This is a serious charge, Gorm. And a false one at that. My uncle saw your father die.” He turns his gaze to Eivor, then. “Eivor Wolf-Kissed. You are Kjotve’s slayer. This man has slandered your clan. What shall I do with him?”

_ Let me pluck out his eyes. _

_ Let me cut out his lying tongue. _

_ Let me beat him with my fists until both sides of his face are two halves of the same moon. _

“You are king of these lands, Harald. The decision must be yours.”

Sigurd squeezes her arm approvingly, before finally letting his hand drop. She wishes he would leave it. It felt like the only thing holding her up against the torrent of her rage.

“A modest and honorable answer,” Harald replies. “Gorm, I name you Worm and call you exiled. Leave these lands by the next full moon or I will feed you to the crows myself.”

Eivor glares at Gorm as he makes his way out of the great hall, his face a mask of fury and his head bowed in shame and anger. He will have no friends here, and should he cross her path before his exile, she will not let him escape again.

“I know that was hard,” Sigurd says gently. “Perhaps my father will make a diplomat of you yet, Wolf-Kissed.”

“I have no need for diplomacy when I have an axe in my hand,” she retorts.

“King Harald, may I speak?” Styrbjorn stands, and Sigurd and Eivor turn to watch as he steps up to the dais.

“The floor is yours, King Styrbjorn,” Harald gestures with welcoming arms.

“My people have held our land since the days when Odin himself walked among us,” Styrbjorn begins, his voice strong and sure. “My kingdom is humble, but we have paid for it in blood. Our victory over Kjotve is proof that we will not lay down without a fight.”

Eivor grins, bumps Sigurd with her shoulder. Styrbjorn’s words bring pride to her heart, and she can see from the small smile on Sigurd’s lips that he feels it as well. They are Ravens, strong and glorious and worthy of Valhalla.

“All here have buried friends, brothers and sisters… sons and daughters,” he continues. “And I for one have had my fill of death. Let those who seek war look beyond our shores. If King Harald brings peace, then I am happy to bend my knee to him.” With those words, Styrbjorn lowers himself to one knee before Harald. 

The sight sickens Eivor. It is not the first time she has watched a great man bend a knee for misguided reasons. For a belief that it is what is best for them, at the sacrifice of all their people believe in.

_ “What?” _ Sigurd demands, voice ringing out across the hall. He surges forward, too quick for Eivor to restrain him in turn. “What in Hel’s name are you doing, father?”

Styrbjorn rises and turns wearily, his movements that of a man twenty winters older than he. “Securing a lasting peace, Sigurd. Our days of fighting are finished.”

Sigurd is furious. His eyes blaze bright, veins cord in his neck. “You said nothing of this to me, not a word! And I will not yield a title that should be mine by right!”

“Then war will continue,” Styrbjorn says sadly. “Men will die, villages will burn, you foolish boy! This is our only way towards true peace.”

“You will die a thrall, you drink-addled cow!” Sigurd roars. “Alone and toothless, in a bed of straw!” She is impressed by his fury.  _ This  _ is her Sigurd. Her battle equal. The man who should be king in place of his soft and weak father. He turns without another word, storming from the longhouse and the father who has betrayed him. She can only stand and stare at Styrbjorn. She has seen this coming for some time, she realizes. Over the course of the years he has grown weaker, losing the fire in his belly and the hunger for battle and glory. He is an old man, now, cowed by age and the shadow of King Harald.

“Forgive my son,” Styrbjorn begs of Harald. Even now, he is bending his knee - though his legs are straight beneath him. “He is ruled by his emotions.”

“I take no offense, Styrbjorn Jarl, and I thank you for your fealty. It is natural to fear change. To resist it. But all things change, and all things end. The lessons of Ragnarok are clear.”

Styrbjorn nods, bows once more at the waist, and takes his leave. He does not meet Eivor’s eyes as he passes her, and she does not grant him the opportunity to. He is beneath her. He has brought shame to their clan in his fealty. She takes a step back, edging towards the door. She wants to seek out Sigurd, speak to him, try to bring comfort to him in this moment of pain. She has no interest in remaining here, in this longhouse full of old women as they gum uselessly at tidings of peace.

“Eivor, hold a moment,” Harald’s sharp eyes are on her, now. “I would speak with you.”

“That was an ambush, lord,” she tells him. “Did you know of Styrbjorn’s plans?”

“For some days, yes,” he admits. “Though it was not at my urging. This was his decision alone.”

“That much is clear.”

He eyes her appraisingly. “Do you dream of a glorious future, Eivor? A warrior like you would be a boon to my clan.”

She takes another step back. “My fate is tied to Sigurd. Where he goes, I follow.”

He smiles regretfully. “I wish I understood you better. For those I do not understand, I do not trust. And I cannot stomach a lack of trust.”

“Nor can I, lord.” Her words are deliberately enigmatic, bleak and empty as a sky without stars.

“Then know, if you stay in Norway, both you and your brother must serve under me. Take tomorrow to think on this. But let us leave these matters for another time.” He turns from her, facing the rest of the throng. “Tonight, we will eat and drink like gods and wake in a kingdom made new.”

She finds Sigurd sitting on a stone wall by the docks. He is no less furious, though the moonlight softens his fire with its cool embrace. She steps close, placing a hand on the ankle of his boot.

“I am sorry for what was done to you. There was no honor in such a thing.”

He looks down at her, then shakes his head. “Not here. No with Harald’s ears everywhere. Walk with me.” He hops down from the wall, grabbing her by the hand and leading her through Alrekstad. The streets are all but empty, the others either abed or joining in the feasting atop the hill. It takes some effort to keep up with Sigurd’s long strides. His pace is fueled by anger. His situation is little different than hers was, all those winters ago. He has lost his father to bended knee, his name tarnished and his future now shadowed by the mercy of another king. Her heart aches for him. She would fight Harald himself if Sigurd asked it of her. She trots alongside him and does not speak again until they are standing atop a hill overlooking the village. From this vantage, the candles and lamps and torches below wink like a hundred pairs of eyes, watching them.

“Did you mean what you said at the docks?” He demands, turning to her.

She knows what he is asking, though she attempts to bring a smile to his face first. “When I told you not to piss in the water, lest you poison the fish with all that mead?”

“Do not test me, Eivor. Not in this moment.”

She yields. “I told you… From here to Valhalla, I will always be at your side.”

“And if I left Norway, if I set sail in my longboat, never to return… would you be at my side, then?” His tone should frighten her, but it doesn’t. As always, she feels safe with him. He is the only person she has ever trusted since that terrible night.

“Yes,” she tells him, placing a hand over her heart. “Always.”

He throws back his head and laughs - a great bellow of a laugh that surprises her with its suddenness - before lifting her off the ground and spinning her about in circles.

“Put me down, you half-witted ergi!” She laughs, beating his chest and shoulders with her fists. No matter how great her stature, he can somehow make her feel small. He is as great and sprawling as Yggdrasil, and she is Ratatoskr, clinging to his branches.

“We will go to England!” He declares, ceasing the spinning but still refusing to put her back on her feet. “A rich and fertile land, begging for the taking. I promised you a kingdom, and you shall have one.”

“Sigurd,” she begins, though she founders for words beyond the uttering of his name.

He lowers her to the ground slowly, the mirth leaving his eyes and a quiet calm filling them in its stead.

“I would give you anything you asked for,” he tells her somberly. “A kingdom. An ocean. The moon, plucked from it’s sky cradle.”

A thumb grazes her cheekbone, traces the hollow of her cheek, follows the line of her jaw. She closes her eyes, struggling to block out the memories of dreams. Of red petals crushed beneath her, and wind-weathered skin pressed to hers.

“I would give you Valhalla itself, if the gods would only challenge me.”

She struggles to think of Randvi, to conjure up those eyes that are ever like the sea after a storm has crossed it. She is failing, with each deliberate stroke of his thumb. Drumbeats fill her ears, pound at her head, and she sways on her feet like a willow in the wind.

His kiss is not a gentle one, not as the first was - searching and asking and hoping. This one is fierce, hard, the kiss of a son of kings - his lips bruising hers as he crushes her to him. It is a demand for her to hear him, a desperate plea for her to open her eyes to meet his, to show him what is in her heart. She gives herself three seconds. One in the name of Odin. One in the name of Freyja. One in the name of Thor. Wisdom, to end this thing that will otherwise undo all. Love, to do it gently. And most importantly… the strength to pull away from the glorious vikingr before her. Three seconds, and no more lest she be pulled into an abyss from which there is no return. She places her hands against his chest, pushing gently, and he only resists for a moment before pulling away.

His eyes are fever bright, his cheeks as flushed as she knows hers must be.

“This cannot be,” she tells him, willing strength into her shaking hands.

“Why not?” He demands. “This is what should have been, all these years. But you would not stay my hand, and left me to another.”

“Your marriage has brought peace,” she protests.

_ “Peace,” _ he scoffs. “My father’s dream, not mine. He chose my marriage, as he has chosen to strip me of my birthright. That is what peace has brought me. It has taken you from me as it has taken my throne.”

“Be that as it may, I cannot be the stone that topples the cairn. There must be balance in all things, and I will not interfere in a marriage that has weathered eight winters.”

“Tell me you do not want me, as I want you. Tell me your heart does not beat for me as mine does for you. Tell me this, and I will never speak of these feelings again.”

_ Gods, do not let these words of his be true,  _ she begs those who might favor her.

“I do not want this. Not when the cost is so great.”

He closes his eyes, as though her words cause him a pain greater than any axe blade ever could.

“Then from this day, you will have peace. We will be Sigurd and Eivor, family and nothing more, as the Nornir have woven it to be.” He smiles at her, and it is a sad and defeated thing. Wings, with feathers stripped and broken. “But I will not love you any less. It is a fire that will burn as long as I walk Midgard's shores. Know that.”

_ And I will never stop loving you. Not for one breath, not for one heartbeat. I will love you until Valhalla opens to me, and even then, I will love you beyond death. _

“Let us return to Forburg,” she says. “There has been enough anger and pain for a lifetime in these few hours. We have an exodus to prepare.”

“That we do,” he agrees. They walk down the hill side by side. Eivor the Wolf-Kissed and Sigurd Styrbjornsson, the king who would not be.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gentler chapter, for those I have so grievously wounded. Consider this a soft apology. xD
> 
> \----

She expected to look back at the shores of Norway and feel regret, or a sense of loss. It dwindles on the horizon, the mighty snow-tipped peaks fading into fog. All she has ever known is at her back. Memories, both great and terrible, growing further and further behind them as the wind billows their sails and the great longships skim the undulating waves. She feels no sorrow, no yearning to turn back. There is a freedom in the shedding of their former lives, like slipping from one’s armor and into the warm waters of a summer-kissed lake. She has spent so long chasing Kjotve she has forgotten the thrill of the unknown; the dreams of plunder and fortune and strange shores rising up to meet them. She can understand the wild light in Sigurd’s eyes, for it is catching. She joins him at the prow, and together they laugh and gnash their teeth at sea spray and speak of things to come.

Sigurd has accepted her choice, and though at times she catches him looking at her with a sadness more fathomless than the depths of the great sea beneath them, she knows it is for the good of their people. Now, more than ever, their clan must be strong. They are a sapling, branching off from a now-dead tree, and shaky soil makes for shallow roots. Knowing this does not lessen the ache of it. Truth is never an easy path to tread. It is an axe blade lodged in her chest, causing pain each time she draws breath. At night, as they sleep side by side between a sea of stars and a sea of fish, she burrows deep under her furs and mouths the words to herself she can never say aloud to the man at her back.

_I will love you until Valhalla opens to me, and even then, I will love you beyond death._

She is surprised that Basim and Hytham have chosen to join them in this journey across the open sea, though she supposes without Sigurd to guide them through the land of his birth, there is little reason for them to stay in Norway. They are his friends, come to Norway at his behest, and not Styrbjorn’s vassals. They ride in Randvi’s boat, and she is relieved to be at her brother’s side without their constant presence. She does not know them, and so she cannot trust them. 

Fifteen days they are at sea, and she begins to truly believe Valka’s words to her as the skies remain clear of Thor’s wrath and the sea remains quiescent. Such a voyage can only be one blessed by the gods. They feast on salted herring and dried berries, on bread kept dry in sealskin bags and long strips of jerky cured with juniper and honey. They sing songs of old, the melodies ringing out across the cresting waves in tandem with the dipping of oars. They watch the horizon, and now and then she sends Synin searching through the morning fog to see if they yet approach land. On the last morning, her raven returns - with a leaf shaped like a star in her beak, its colors crimson and ochre.

“Sigurd!” She cries, weaving through the oarsmen to his side. “Synin says we shall soon touch earth once more!”

His eyes gleam, and he holds the leaf high and roars with laughter. Their Ravens join him, that the other ships might hear, and their fierce joy spreads and is so great that the Aesir in their great halls must surely hear it.

England is unlike anything she has ever seen. Verdant green stretches as far as the eyes can see, growing from a thin line of green and high cliffs in the distance to wide rivers framed by trees with heavy branches. There are great rolling hills, bedecked with flowers in every color imaginable. There are trees that match the leaf Synin found, bursts of sun amidst the deep greens of foliage. The rivers are plentiful, with fish leaping from the water in answer to their ship’s wide bellies. Animals graze in fields as they pass, some raising their heads and others ignoring their presence. Sheep and cattle and horses twitch their tails and shake their heads and frolic in their pastures. The horses are tall and beautiful, heavy with muscle and bearing thick manes - their coats of every color shining in the sun like precious metals and stones.

Sigurd tells them they are in Saxon territory, a kingdom named Mercia. It is largely unpacified, despite the presence of the Ragnarssons. 

“Sigurd, do Ragnar’s sons know we are coming?” Eivor asks, when she is at last able to tear her eyes from the passing countryside.

“They do not,” he admits, “But they will not scoff at our visit. Of the four kingdoms in England, the sons of Ragnar have settled only one. The rest is ripe for the taking.”

“Do we mean to join their army?” Dag asks.

“No, no,” Sigurd shakes his head. “We will speak with them, get the lay of the land. And carve this country into as many pieces as we see fit.”

They pass a cluster of huts, their walls thin and their roofs made of thatch. A large stone building stands atop an overlooking hill, with an enormous christian cross adorning its roof. Dag sneers.

“Is _that_ what passes for a town? Plain brick and a single rune to their god?”

“That rune is called a _rood,_ Dag,” Sigurd explains. “The cross upon which their god was sacrificed. It sits atop a monastery, a place of worship.”

Dag snorts. “That cross killed their Christ, and now they display it in worship? How bizarre!” 

“Odin sacrificed himself for knowledge, and hung upon Yggdrasil for nine days and nights,” Eivor offers. 

Further along the river, she leans over the side of the longship to get a better view. At the river’s shore, a group of men and women cluster. They are watching as a robed man dips another man into the water and holds him beneath its surface. 

“What are they doing?” Dag demands, leaning out beside her.

“Ritual drowning,” she grins. Dag looks impressed, peering to get a better look at the slaughter.

“Baptism, Dag,” Siguard sighs from his perch at the helm. “Are the ways of Christians really so unfamiliar to you?”

“Not at all,” Dag stumbles, shamed by Sigurd’s disappointment. “I simply forgot.”

She hides a smile. She has never seen a man more eager to trail in another’s shadow than Dag is. His devotion to Sigurd blinds him to all else, though she wonders if the same is not true for her. Has she not all but set fire to the world she once knew, to follow him across the sea and into a new land?

“Don’t lose heart, friend,” she tells Dag, clapping him on the shoulder. “Soon you’ll be able to drown all the Saxons you’d like.”

He seems consoled by the prospect, seating himself once more and taking up an oar. Synin circles the longboat in lower and lower circles, and Eivor raises her arm to give her friend a rest. Synin lands, slender talons biting into the leather of her bracer. She cocks her head, regarding Eivor with glittering black eyes, and ruffles her feathers contentedly.

“Aren’t you pleased with yourself,” she croons, stroking the sleek black head. In sunlight this clear and bright, Synin’s feathers are iridescent. They shine with glimmering hues that hint at the northern lights, and she smiles. Perhaps there is one thing she will miss about Norway, for here the skies are empty and the road of the valkyries does not paint the way to Valhalla. Why would it, in a land of christians who have no love for glory or honor?

Sigurd cries for the boat to halt, and Synin flaps her wings before taking flight once more. Eivor joins Sigurd, and he points upriver. Ahead, a thick and heavy chain is strung across the water from shore to shore. The end of it runs into a small camp of stone and palisades. 

“We must remove it before pressing on,” he tells her. Then, to the oarsmen, “Pull to the side here, among the reeds. There must be a way to release that chain within the camp.”

“I will go,” Eivor offers, fingers already brushing against the haft of her axe.

“And I will be right behind you!” Dag cries, not to be outdone, bolting to his feet once more.

Sigurd’s eyes meet hers, and there is pride and a spark of warmth that remains unextinguished in them. “No, Dag. You stay here,” he says, eyes never leaving hers. “Should trouble come our way, I want you defending the ship. Let Eivor here spill the first blood.”

She grins at him, pulling her axe free of her belt, and leaps from the longboat. The river is shallow here, the water far warmer than any river in Norway would ever be. She slogs through it and approaches the fort, pulling her shield from her back and sliding it onto her left arm. She has not forgotten the hidden blade, though she is loathe to use a foreign weapon in a foreign land. First blood should be spilled in honor of Odin and by a Viking axe; a sacrifice, that he might bless her journey through this land.

A Saxon perched in the fort’s low tower utters a cry of warning to the others, before loosing an arrow. She catches it with her shield, the sharpened point glancing off the slope of it. The Saxon in his tower scrambles to notch another arrow. Despite the distance, she is sure his hands are shaking. The second arrow goes wide, thudding into the soft earth five paces away. In one fluid motion, she shakes her shield free and unslings her ash bow. She nocks an arrow and lets it fly, the soft white feathers whispering between her fingers on release. It finds its mark, the arrowhead embedding in the man’s neck. He tumbles from his tower headlong, clutching at his throat and crashing to the ground below. Three Saxons run from the gate towards her. They wear leather hauberks and sashes, though their leader wears a chestplate that gleams and flashes in the sun. She retrieves her shield and beats her axe against it, uttering a shout of challenge as she dedicates their deaths to Odin. They mill nervously before her, as sheep do when one enters their pen with a knife in hand. 

Their leader finds his courage first, hefting his spear in his hand before rushing at her and thrusting the steel tip towards her belly. She sidesteps, forcing the head of the spear down into the dirt with the heel of her boot before bashing the man’s face with her shield. He falls back, landing on his rear, blood running into his eye from the now-split skin on his brow. She buries her axe in his skull, thick bone splitting beneath her blade. The other two are moving, choosing this moment of chaos to make their attack. She throws her axe and it strikes the man to the left with a meaty thud, the blade embedding in his breastbone. He falls to his knees, and his companion utters a cry and charges her. He thinks without her axe, there is a chance he might win. These Saxons are soft, little better than farmers beating at her with sheepskin mitts for weapons. She almost pities them in this gentle land of rolling hills and lazy rivers. A land without gods, save for one.

She blocks his swing, then kicks out with her right leg. He screams in response to the pain as bone shatters beneath her plated boot. He tries to roll, to retrieve his fallen sword, and another two kicks to his head put an end to his struggles. She spits to the side, disgusted. Battle should not be this easy. Were these proper vikings before her, it would have been a fight worth the sweat on her brow. She retrieves her axe and advances on the fort. Another Saxon stumbles towards her from the bushes, and she laughs at the sight of him struggling to pull up his trousers. He freezes, eyes going to the bloodied axe in her hand.

“Go, little Saxon mouse,” she chuckles. “Run away. I’ll not kill a man mid-shit.”

He does not hesitate at her invitation, but flees in the direction of the gate - arse cheeks whiter than a fish’s belly flashing at her as he runs.

“Taking this land will be like stealing sweetbread from children,” she mutters to none in particular, “If this is all Mercia has to throw at us.”

-

There is much to do in order to make a foothold here, on the shore the Ragnarssons have abandoned. After the bodies of the Saxons inhabiting the camp are dragged off to be left for the crows, tents begin to rise from the ground. The old longhouse must be cleared out, as it is full of boxes and barrels and two prisoners grateful to be free. Rowan, the young man, promises to bring the finest horses to their camp. The woman, Yanli, offers trade and commerce through her merchant connections. It is not much, but it is a start. Eivor sheds her heavy furs, opting for lighter leather armor. The nights here are warm, the days hotter still, and it will take time for her body to grow used to the change after a life of snow and frost.

With growth comes a need for supplies and wealth, and so Eivor and Dag take to the longship once more - raiding along the river shores just as he has so desperately longed to do since their first arrival. The monasteries prove to be ripe for the picking; inhabited by priests, soft and fat and afraid of their own shadows that flee before their blades. There are great chests brimming over with gold and jewels. Tributes, to their god - who hungers for treasure rather than blood. She finds it strange, that men so humble and clad in little more than roughspun tunics would worship a god with such a great thirst for riches.

“Look at him, Eivor,” Dag cries on one such raid. He holds a twisting priest by the cowl. “What purpose does this strange haircut serve? They are the same, one and all. Is it to drive the women from them?” She has noticed this as well, the strange circle of bald scalp in the midst of a full head of hair. The man’s face is contorted in fear, and he repeatedly kisses a necklace of wooden beads that hangs from his neck. They are not even allowed to wear precious metals or jewels, but must adorn themselves with dull wooden baubles. 

“Perhaps it is to free them from this damnable heat,” she shrugs. She hefts the heavy silver cross she holds in her hands, eyeing the workings before showing them to Dag. “Everything is backwards here. They worship a dead god. Look at him, hanging there with nails through his hands.”

“A god who cannot defend himself any more than he can protect them,” Dag snorts. He throws the priest to the ground before bringing his axe down on the man repeatedly.

“Dag,” she says after the third strike, “Stop. You are making Saxon wine.”

Dag laughs. “Two weeks on English soil, and you are already growing soft. It is a good thing Sigurd brought _me_ along; his sharpest axe.”

She has never been one for needless cruelty, and there is no honor in slaying a man who would have trouble defending himself against a chicken. She leaves Dag to his bloody work, resting the heavy cross on her shoulder and traipsing back down the hill towards the longship. At her back, smoke rises from the burning thatch roofs and clouds the sun, casting the world in a faded orange glow.

They dock once more in Ravensthorpe after nightfall, and she sees Sigurd waiting at the edge of the wood planking. The torches cast his shadow long and flickering, and he somehow seems both taller than he has ever been and further away. He has been scarce these past weeks, spending an increasing amount of time at Basim’s side. They are always together, whispering in the background at feasts or going on long rides into the woods. They fall silent whenever she approaches, and though Sigurd offers her reassuring smiles and his eyes tell her that he is still hers… She cannot help but feel as though she is losing him, one tiny piece at a time. She has no right to feel resentful of it, for it was she who cut him loose. 

He waves her over to him now, and she leaves the others to unload their day’s treasures from the longboat.

“I have something for you,” he tells her as she falls into step with him.

“I pray to the gods it is mead,” she answers, arching her back and stretching the aching muscles there. “It has been a long three days of razing the English countryside.”

“Then you will like this gift, though you cannot drink it.” He is smiling in his old mischievous way as he leads her through the longhouse. They stop inside a large room. The bed is a fine thing, crafted from ornately carved wood and piled high with furs. There is a thick woven rug beneath her feet, and the walls are adorned with Raven clan banners.

“Do you wish me to read to you until you fall asleep?” She teases, running her hands over a letterbox resting on the table.

“I had not considered it, but now that you offer it…” He hums to himself, then sits on the edge of the bed and spreads his hands wide. “Well, Eivor… Does this please you?”

She furrows her brow, not understanding. “Does what please me? Reading bedtime stories to my Jarl?” 

“This room.” His eyes shine in the candlelight as her jaw slackens with surprise.

“This room is… mine?”

“It is,” he answers. “Consider it a small corner of your kingdom, soon to see expansion.” He pats the bed beside him, and she crosses the room to sit down. The bed is soft, the mattress of goose down cushioning her. She has never lain on a bed such as this. It is a bed for the likes of kings.

She finds she is encircling herself with her arms, though she cannot say why. “You did not need to do this, Sigurd. I’d have been perfectly happy to sleep down at the docks with the other vikingr.”

“There are worse burdens to bear than a soft bed and a roof over your head, little drengr,” he says softly. “I want you here, close to me. You are my greatest weapon, my most trusted friend, and I… Need you here. We will rule together, as we always have. Sigurd and his Wolf-Kissed.”

_His Wolf-Kissed._ Her spine is stiff with wanting to bend, and her hands grip her elbows lest her arms betray her. It was easier to forget the breadth of her longing when she had shingles to hammer down or tents to raise or Saxons to bloody her axe with. Now there is little to pull her mind from such things, and she is faced once more with the Nornir’s cruelty. She is to sleep in this room alone, not fifty paces from where he is to sleep beside his wife. Beside _Randvi._

_Eivor the Wolf Kissed, mighty drengr and slayer of men. Made to forever yearn for an embrace that will not come._

He honors his word, and makes no move to press her. The wall of stone has made her plea, and the water has chosen a course around her. She can see that all it would take is a breath, a look, a sigh as soft as silk, and he would be hers. This bed he has given her and this room that surrounds them would be a shrine to their love. It is hers for the taking. All she need do is ask.

“It is more than enough. More than I deserve,” she answers. “Now you’d best leave, for I have three days of Saxon blood and river water to wash from my hide - and if the smell doesn’t kill you, I just might.”

He claps his hands to his thighs and laughs. “Eivor, of all the men and women who have faced me, I think you might be the only drengr with the might to beat me. But let us end this night with soft words, and dreams of the future.”

He rises from the bed, strides to the door. A smile still curls at the corners of his mouth when he turns back to look at her. “Sleep well, little drengr. May the sweetest of dreams find you.”

And dream, she does - of open blue sky and a crimson sea. Of hands that glide like a swan-boat over the river of her body. It is not enough, this small boon from the gods - for her bed is empty save for her. But it will do. A sip of water that quenches a thirst so great she might drink the sea itself.

  
  


-

“He is different here,” Randvi says. “Freer. Less burdened. He is like he was when first we met.” 

She is sitting cross-legged on the floor, old papers of varying degrees of age and crumbling edges laid out before her. Eivor sits with her back to the wall, legs stretched out before her as she sips her mead thoughtfully.

“Perhaps,” she agrees. “Though Styrbjorn’s betrayal weighs heavily on him still. It is no small thing, to be made to forge your own path and begin anew. Tell me, Randvi… What do _you_ think of this strange land?”

“I think it is beautiful,” Randvi says immediately. “I have never seen such _green._ The land is fertile and bountiful. This position is an excellent one; the Ragnarssons chose it well. There are ample fish in the river, deer in the forest about us, and enough clear land that we might grow crops.” Her eyes shine with excitement, and she forgets about her task at hand as she gestures animatedly about her. “It is a fresh start, for all of us.”

“And are things better between you and my brother?” She asks, her tone light despite the ache in her throat. “Has this new land softened him to you?”

Randvi’s eyes shift away, returning to the papers in her lap rather than meeting Eivor’s eyes. She shrugs, tucks a tendril of hair behind one ear. “I have made my peace with it, Eivor. Though we do not have love, we are an able enough team. We bring strength to our clan, and… I suppose that is enough, for now.”

“Such a statement would make the skalds weep,” Eivor shakes her head. “Tell me you have left this longhouse in the past week.”

“Where would I go?” Randvi demands, arching one brow. “My work is here, not off with you and Dag, burning half of England.”

“I found some berries along the river a few days back,” Eivor offers helpfully. “I ate some, and did not die. Would you like to try them? I think Tekla could make something fine with them.”

“I have work to do here,” Randvi sighs, gesturing at the pile of scrolls.

“If you were any more stiff, you might break in half like a bit of brittle bone,” Eivor says with finality. She clambers to her feet, and with a sweep of her boot, shuffles the scrolls aside. They scatter, rolling across the floorboards in all directions. “Come, little snow fox. Let us sniff out some berries.”

“Eivor, may Thor strike you down,” Ranvi laughs, cheeks flushing with frustration. She makes to scramble after them, sees it as a hopeless cause, and throws her hands up.

“Fine. Show me these berries that _did not kill you._ How can I resist them, when you speak of them so?”

They spend the afternoon picking berries and eating them along the river’s edge. Their lips and fingers are stained deep purple from the taking. Eivor smears the juice down her face as savage war paint, and she roars at Randvi and chases her through the surrounding fields of wildflowers, declaring herself a mad draugr. When they grow tired of such games, they sun themselves on a large stone and grimace at each other with their stained teeth, laughing until their sides ache and the sun dips low amongst the hills. It is a happy time, one in which Randvi does not dwell on her troubled thoughts and Eivor feels the tightness in her chest ease.

“This was a good day,” Randvi says, before placing a hand on her belly and groaning. “Though I think perhaps I ate far too many berries.”

“We have left nothing for the bears. They will despair when they see the bushes stripped clean,” Eivor chuckles. “Who knew such a small woman could eat enough to put my brother to shame.”

Randvi laughs, sitting upright and struggling to pull her wild tresses into a braid once more. “Perhaps I am small because your brother eats everything but the scraps.”

“Let me,” Eivor chides, pushing Randvi’s hands aside and deftly braiding the gleaming copper locks. They sit in comfortable silence as she works, watching the sky catch fire.

“Thank you for this, Eivor.” Randvi’s voice is soft, grateful. Her face is turned from Eivor, but she can see the slope of a cheek rise in answer to a smile.

For the first time in all the springs and summers and falls and winters of Eivor knowing her, Randvi seems content. She is not so tightly wound. She carries herself with none of the former sorrow, her chin held high with pride once more. There is new life in this land, and it has returned color to her cheeks and the spark to her eyes. Eivor finds herself envious, for she has found this land a tomb. Nothing within her own heart may be allowed to bloom. She has made the field of red flowers wilt and droop.

“You are welcome. Now, let us return to the longhouse. There is mead to be drunk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a hard fic to write. I'm sure by now most of you know that the game leaves a lot of huuuuuuuuuge gaps between quality Sigurd time. I'm doing the best I can to bridge them, and tie into the main story as I trundle along. If I write about it, it is because it is a part of the game that greatly affected me. I do not seek to rewrite the story, but add to it in little dips and dabbles and smidges of headcanon... as well as madly loving Sigurd, of course. Thank you SO much for all the super sweet feedback. You have swelled my heart a thousand fold.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you haven't played the Grantebridge arc/Song of Soma, spoilers ahead. <3  
> \------------------------

“I told you if you built me my stable, you’d have the finest mount in England.” Rowan’s eyes shine brightly as he watches her with anticipation. “Tell me, what do you think?”

“He is mighty indeed,” she answers with an honest note of awe in her voice. She has never seen such a horse. He is tall; his withers level with the top of her head. His chest is broad, his hooves the size of small plates and feathered by fine black hair. His black hide gleams in the sun, shining like Synin’s own feathers. Her fingers stroke the sleek neck wonderingly, and a soft nose nudges at her cheek, blowing hot air and making the loose strands freed from her braids flutter. She decides the hours of backbreaking work, hefting thick wooden beams and hammering nails, was well worth it. “Does he have a name?”

“Not that I was told,” Rowan shrugs. “I suppose that is up to you.”

She contemplates the stallion before her for a moment. “Svaðilfari,” she decides. “It suits him.”

“What does it mean?” Rowan asks. His Norse is patchy at best, though he has been making an honest effort at learning it.

“It is the name of a great stallion from legend,” she replies. “A beast of enormous size and strength, who belonged to a giant.”

“Svaðilfari,” Rowan echoes. “A noble name indeed.”

“There is a great story about him, and how the trickster god Loki…” She trails off, distracted by movement amongst the trees ahead.

Beneath their sheltering shade, Sigurd stands and speaks with Basim. Both have saddled their horses, and Hytham is standing close by, arms folded in a gesture that is distinctly unhappy. She leaves Rowan holding Svaðilfari’s lead, striding across the settlement with her heart thrumming furiously in her chest. He is leaving so soon, and with their hold on this shore so tenuous. He is leaving without _her,_ though Styrbjorn is no longer here to forbid her accompaniment. Basim exchanges a final word with Hytham, then nudges his horse into a trot. He nods at Eivor as he passes, and she turns to watch him go before rounding on Sigurd.

“Where are you going, brother? A new grand adventure?” She asks, struggling to rein herself in.

“I am off to meet with Ubba and Ivarr Ragnarsson, north of Repton. They mean to make a man king. Join me there, when you have concluded your business with Soma in Grantebridge. No doubt your axe will come in handy.”

She opens her mouth to speak, to ask that he take her with him. If he is to meet the sons of Ragnar, she should be at his side. She does not get the chance, for Sigurd’s loyal dog is as close behind him as ever.

“Take me with you, Sigurd!” A voice cries from behind her. She turns to see Dag, rushing up the hill, armor clanking and face red from his hurry to reach Sigurd in time.

“No, Dag. You are to stay here, and watch over Ravensthorpe. While I am gone, you will answer to Eivor as though her commands were mine. Do you understand?”

“Of course, Sigurd. As you wish.” Dag shoots her a furious glare, as though Sigurd’s leaving him is all her doing. _“I_ will keep Ravensthorpe safe.”

Sigurd looks down at her, winking knowingly. “I will see you soon, little drengr. Do not delay too long.”

With that, he kicks his horse into motion and sets off down the road. She watches him go, her shoulders tight and hands balled into fists. Another piece of him gone, lost to her. She is alone once more, just as she was in Norway. Sigurd has left her to watch over his clan and make peace treaties in his stead. She, who is better suited to wielding an axe than wielding words of peace. She will do her best to bring honor to him and to the Raven clan. If this is what he asks of her, then she will bend.

-

There is little joy in hunting a traitor. With Grantebridge recovered from Saxon hands, it is the next challenge Soma has presented to her. She does her best to take her time. Her decision will mean someone’s death, and it is a responsibility she does not take lightly. First, she raids alongside the woman Birna’s side. Despite her attempts to remain distant, there is a fire to the woman that matches her own. Their raid turns into a competition, and the two of them race through Ravensburg, letting arrows fly and calling out their coup with glee as Saxon guards fall at their feet. Birna wins, the last arrow in her quiver embedding itself in the eye of a Saxon rising from the bushes behind Eivor.

“Lucky strike,” Eivor laughs. “I should warn Odin to tremble where you walk, lest he be without either of his eyes.”

They roast wild boar that night, and though the ale they have taken from Saxon stores is weak and watery, it is enough to warm their ears and fill their bellies. Birna’s men dance about the fire, singing and stumbling and laughing. They sit apart from the others, watching the merriment - Eivor atop a fallen tree and Birna slumped against the rough bark.

“This must be what their Christ’s piss tastes like,” She grimaces, wiping at her lips. She has been plying Birna with drink for an hour, and though the former smuggler’s tolerance is one to rival Eivor’s, the ale has slowly softened her tongue.

“This land is not so bad,” Birna laughs. “It has its charms. It has not been an easy time here... but since Soma took me in, it has been better. She saw more than a smuggler in me. She saw...” Birna pauses, a sad little smile touching her lips. “I was useful to something greater than myself. Useful to her vision.”

“In a world where few saw you as worthy of trust, she’s one who did.” She knows the look in Birna’s eyes, recognizes the curve to her lips. There is more to Birna’s bond with Soma than mere loyalty. This runs deeper than a river. It is an ocean, bottomless and wide. It is the same ocean that drowns her.

“Right,” Birna nods. “And I love that about her. I love… everything about her.”

“Does Soma feel the same for you?” She presses.

Birna shrugs. “If I knew what was going on in another person’s head, I’d find life dreadful and dull. But Soma seems to enjoy my company.”

“But not in the way you’d like,” she surmises. “Does it not trouble you?”

“Painful truths are easier when you can laugh,” Birna tells her. “Delight in the face of suffering is an act of rebellion.”

“You are a wise woman, Birna. Or perhaps it is this dreadful ale. Saxons are as ill-suited to brewing as they are to fighting.”

Birna laughs, high and merry. “Do not tell the others. I’ve a reputation to uphold, and you threaten my good name.” She takes a long drink of her ale, then looks at Eivor with eyes deceptively sharp for one so ale-soaked. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

“Feel what?”

Birna nods as though to herself. “The sting of an unkindled love, Sunbeam. You have the eyes of one who has lost much, and though the thing that has saved you has also sustained you, it is the very thing that may kill you.”

“I think I like you better when you are sober. You sound like an old greybeard, spouting nonsense on his deathbed.” She shoves at Birna with the heel of her boot, and the former smuggler laughs as her ale sloshes over her trousers.

Her words are as accurate as an arrow guided by Freyja’s hand, striking true at the heart of Eivor’s pain. They each love someone greater than themselves, and are bound by fate to follow wherever that road may take them; though it is as their warriors, and not their lovers. She realizes she has grown rather fond of Birna, and when they part ways in the early light of morning, she finds herself begging the gods to let the traitor be one of the others.

Lif is a man who is both iron and water. He swings his axe like a true vikingr at her side as they cleave their way through Saxon soldiers. He leaves the priest to her, watching with interested eyes as her hidden blade parts flesh and bone. It is easy to forget he is more than a boat builder, with his gentle voice and dark eyes; his callused hands and poems carefully inscribed within each longboat he crafts. He is a man of great strength, choosing to voice himself in the fury of his axe rather than with words. He is the opposite of a man such as Dag, with his ringing voice and bragging ways. In that, they have kinship. It is a language she prefers as well.

She is far more suspicious of him than she is of Birna, and it is not only due to her affection for the smuggler. Lif seems envious of Soma’s power. Quiet though he might be, he is not a man who enjoys standing in the shade of one taller than he. Alone, it is not enough to warrant a betrayal… but too many times she has seen envy grow from a small seed to a great tree with grasping roots. Roots that twine and twist about, choking and killing anything that might block their hunger for expansion.

Of the three, he has been at Soma’s side the longest - sailing with her under Guthrum and the great summer army. By his own words, he wished Guthrum had chosen him rather than Soma to lead in his stead. He regrets not speaking up, and remaining silent as Soma took what he wanted from him. She can see that it is a wound that burns; the surface healed, but beneath the skin it continues to fester.

They meet again atop a hill, watching the frantic Saxons below rush to extinguish the flames set by Lif’s drengr.

“Another of Wigmund’s arms severed,” Lif says with satisfaction. “Will you return to camp and drink with us?”

“Another time,” she declines. The sun is half-gone, and she has yet to speak with Galinn. She is growing weary of chasing Soma’s traitor, while Sigurd is gone to Repton and feasting alongside Ragnar’s sons. 

  
  


Galinn was a man half-mad and half-drowned when Soma pulled him from the water, he tells her. He spent years wandering, taking herbs and eating mushrooms in an attempt to force new visions. He does not speak of Soma as a man loyal or with love in his heart might, unlike the others. His visions yet cloud his eyes, and he speaks of destiny and the will of the gods with the fervor of a seer. She has known men like him in her time, forever reaching for the future and using man and beast and glory as stepping stones to reach it. Men like Galinn have little use for glory and honor, so lost are they in their dreams and their search to unravel the Nornir’s threads. 

“Visions are strange and powerful things,” she says, remembering her own. “What did you see?”

“I was climbing a mountain,” he answers, gesturing with his hands. “A lion and a snake on my back, weighing me down. I struggled. Then Soma appeared, and she eased my burden. When we reached the peak, there was hardly enough room to stand. On a point like the tip of a blade, we teetered there, gripping one another. Tightly. I know I can seem distant, obsessed, but… the gods are with us always. I see it as my duty to shelter Soma from their ire.”

She is not Valka, but there is much that is clear to her in his words. Lif is the lion, powerful and silent. Birna is the snake, a former smuggler. The mountain’s peak is Grantebridge, and there can only be room for one at it’s sharp tip.

She joins him and his drengr in burning Earnningstone, a hamlet loyal to Wigmund. She rides away when it is done, leaving Galinn and his men to loot the spoils. She has no desire for gold or trinkets or drink. She wants only for the truth to out itself.

-

She brings nothing but ill tidings when she once more pulls Svaðilfari up short in front of the longhouse. Dark deeds have cast a shadow over her despite the warmth of the evening. She leaves the great horse lashed to the fence and strides into Soma’s hall. Birna, Lif, and Galinn are seated at the feast tables and eating, sharing drinks and stories. Birna sees Eivor and raises her tankard cheerfully, a salute to her new friend. There is relief in her heart, now that she is sure of Birna’s innocence. Birna, bright of spirit and unloved by Soma, is safe.

It is Galinn who has betrayed his Jarlskona. Galinn, who stole Lif’s yellow paint and led the Saxons to victory before fleeing in his marked ship. Surely he has angered the gods, for they sent wolves to wreak their vengeance on a man so without honor; A man who would ally with christians and Saxons and aid in the slaughter of his own people. He is a man blinded by his visions, who will stop as nothing to see them realized. He has sacrificed all in the name of his madness, and the bones of the vikings now buried in the earth are his hard-won prize.

“Are you sure?” Soma asks her, eyes darkening at Eivor’s words in her ear.

“I am sure. Your traitor is Galinn. What do you mean to do with him?”

“What a leader must,” Soma answers, and there is great sorrow in her words. The Jarlskona has loved her three closest advisors as family, and the truth before her now is a knife that twists deep in her back. She calls them to her now, waving them over with a sweep of her arm, and they rise from their respite and assemble before her. Birna’s eyes are bright and guileless, Lif’s calm and reserved, and Galinn is as shifting as the sea. He stands restlessly, waiting for Soma to speak.

“My family, my inner circle,” Soma begins. “Today we make sure what has happened to us will never happen again. We end Wigmund’s life.” She turns from them, bracing her hands against the heavy desk. “But not all together. For you cannot survive the winter with a rat in your larder.”

Eivor stands as still as stone as Soma pulls her knife free of the smooth wood and turns. She seizes Galinn by his cloak, her eyes aflame with anger and the burn of betrayal.

“Galinn.” Her voice is soft, and were it not for the terrible light in her eyes, one might mistake the word for a caress. “You have betrayed me, Galinn.”

His protests stand for little, and he dies as all men die. When it is done and he lies at Soma’s feet in a bloody heap, she wipes the dagger’s blade on her cloak and returns it to the table. Lif and Birna remain silent, falling back into the shadows and leaving their Jarlskona and Eivor to speak.

“I feel as though I have torn my own arm off,” Soma tells her, and though she has no tears to shed for a traitor, her eyes shine too brightly in the lamplight.

-

Wigmund is dead, and Soma has given Eivor her pledge. This should ease her heavy heart, but it does not. There is no comfort in the soft fur beneath her as she gazes up to the stars. The events of Grantebridge plague her still. Soma loved Galinn, saved him from death and gave him everything within her reach. And yet, he betrayed her - professing to the end his loyalty despite his deeds. Old words, no less sharp sharp despite the time that has passed since Valka spoke them, tear at her heart.

_You will betray your brother, Sigurd. That is the meaning of your vision._

Guilt, born of her absence at Sigurd’s side and Dag’s goading words washes over her. _I follow Sigurd, Eivor. Who do you follow? Yourself? Your own glory?_ She closes her eyes, pulls her arms more tightly about herself, and begs for sleep to take her from this place. It is a hard day’s ride yet to Repton, and even if she cannot sleep, Svaðilfari must rest.

Njörun answers her prayers, taking her swiftly and silently - pulling a cloak of spangled darkness over Eivor’s mind before the dreams come at last.

The field of red flowers still stands, but the sun in her sky is gone. There is a great black hole where it once hung, framed by a ring of fiery light. Petals shift in the wind at her feet, torn loose from their stems as they bend and sway beneath the punishing gusts. Sigurd is here, though he stands with his back to her as he gazes up at the terrible sky. She wades through withered petals, and sees that her feet are bare. She wears no armor. Her axe and her shield do not weigh on her, and the hidden blade is gone. She wears only a shift of thin fabric, and were it not so cold it would be a pleasant and fine thing. The sort of thing a queen or goddess might wear - and she might use to bind a wound or wipe her bloody brow.

She reaches his side, slipping her hand into his own.

“It is Ragnarok,” he tells her. The burning ring in the sky is reflected in his eyes, replacing the blue she knows so well. His fingers close about hers, holding tightly. “Fenrir has swallowed the sun. It is the beginning and the end of all things.”

“I am not ready,” she pleads. “We have only just begun to write our saga.”

He releases her hand, turns to her, his own hands settling at her sides in the places where her waist dips. It is as though her body were made to be held by him, and his hands were made to hold her. The silken shift is all that is between his rough palms and her heated skin, and her breath catches in her lungs and holds there. 

“Let the nine realms burn,” he answers, his eyes bright. “For without you, I would see it all turn to ash.”

She cannot speak. He has stolen her words as surely as Fenrir has stolen the sun. She raises herself up on bare toes and presses her lips to his. His eyes lock on hers, and she can see the world’s end burning in them still. He is here, and he is not. He is close, and he is a thousand leagues away. She frames his face with her hands, kisses him again.

“Come back to me, Sigurd Styrbjornsson. Don’t leave just yet. Stay here, with me.”

There is a moment in which he must choose. She is afraid to breathe for the indecision in his eyes, and then he is pulling her to him as though she is the first sight of land and he is a man who has been long adrift on a sea without wind. His hands weave into her hair and he pulls her head back, baring her throat to him and pressing his burning mouth to her fevered skin. Her fingers dig into powerful muscles, seeking purchase as her legs tremble beneath her. 

He is not gentle, this man who would watch the world burn - but he is still her Sigurd, her vikingr. This, she knows as surely as she knows herself. He pulls her down into the sea of broken petals, rolling her over in them until he is above her and looking down. There are petals in her hair, petals stuck to the sheen of sweat now covering her skin. Thin fabric tears beneath hands that have brought death to hundreds and only joy to her. Her breaths come fast and unsteady; a rabbit in a snare. She is shivering, and it is not from the cold. Cold, she can bear. She was born into cold, and the memory of her homeland is forever written in her bones. This, she cannot bear. She is half-mad from wanting, and she pulls at his shoulders, willing him to bend for her as she has done so many times for him.

He places a hand flat on her belly, then, pressing her into the ground. Petals yield beneath her, a crushed bed of velvet under her weight. His palm is cool against her skin, and gooseflesh rises in response to his touch. He marvels at her, eyes twin flames that flare with a hunger to rival that of the great wolf Fenris. She is the moon, and he means to devour her. His hand slides up from her navel to between her breasts, coming to rest at last over her wildly beating heart.

“You told me this cannot be,” he says, though it is also a question.

“This is a dream,” she answers. “Anything can be.”

_“No.”_ He withdraws his hand as though she has burned him, and she can feel the imprint of heat where it rested only a moment ago. “I want more than dreams, Eivor. Dreams cannot sustain me any more than they might sustain you.”

She rises to her elbows, the blood draining from her face and leaving her cheeks cold. “Sigurd, wait, I--”

But he is gone. Torn from the fabric of her dream as suddenly as a sail from its mast in a storm. She stares as the crushed petals where he was just kneeling, runs her fingers over lips still tingling from his kisses, and raises her eyes to the sky. The sun is back, blazing bright in its sky cradle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look! I drew you a picture! I drew one of Svaðilfari, too, but... this one wins.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Repton/Ragnarsson spoilers ahead if you haven't played that. :)
> 
> \---------------------

The high walls of Templebrough loom ahead, and Eivor instructs the oarsmen to pull ashore. She can see the tents further down the shore. Sigurd and Ubba, waiting for her arrival. Their search for Burgred has brought them here, and if he resides within, he will be well guarded in such a place. She leaps over the side, and it is clear Dag means to follow her, perching at the edge of the longboat as she begins to wade through the shallows. She shakes her head at him, raising a hand to give him pause.

“No, Dag. Stay with the ship. We’ll have need of you and the raiding party soon. Listen for my horn, and we will begin the assault.”

Dag’s eyes glint with anger, and his lip curls back from his teeth. “I will wait for  _ Sigurd’s _ horn,” he growls. He has grown increasingly frustrated with her and Sigurd’s recent absences, taken to pacing the longhouse worriedly or shouting at the children when they play too loudly or block his path. He is a man boiling with anger, coiled and longing for something to strike. She gives him no further instructions, only casts a cold eye on him before turning and continuing her slog to shore.

Ubba and Sigurd look up as she approaches, and her heart is glad to see Sigurd’s mouth stretch into a wide grin at the sight of her. 

“Eivor, there you are!” He cries, clapping her on the back. His eyes are merry and bright, warming her cheeks and gladdening her heart as they always have.

“What’s with the prisoners?” She asks, nodding at the bound Saxons kneeling before Ubba. 

“Men from the fortress, out on patrol,” he answers. 

“We squeezed them,” Ubba explains. “Burgred’s not here. It’s his queen they’re guarding. Aethelswith. They must have separated after Tamsworth.”

“I heard as much from Ceolbert, in Ledecestre,” she nods.

“Ceolbert? What was he doing there?” Ubba demands, then answers his own question with a darkening of his brow.  _ “Ivarr.” _

“Too long a tale for now,” she acknowledges. “But he is fine. I sent him to Repton. What’s the plan here?”

“It won’t be long before someone comes looking for these men,” Sigurd tells her. “We need to get inside and find Aethelswith.”

“Capture a queen to find a king,” she muses. “It might work. I have left Dag to wait on the shore for our signal.”

“Only one way to find out,” Sigurd grins. He turns to Ubba. “See if you can get any more out of them. Me and Eivor will take care of fetching Aethelswith.”

They leave Ubba to his work, approaching the fort in a wide arc. He lets her lead, following her as she skirts small ponds and strides through the river rushes.

“The Saxsons won’t welcome us through the front doors,” he volunteers. “Shall we try to find a quiet way in, or call Dag down upon them? I’m beside you, either way.”

“I am glad for it,” she answers, mirroring his pleased grin with one of her own. “The day is hot, and you cast a great shadow, as overgrown as you are.”

He throws back his head and laughs, starling birds from their roosts in the trees. “Ah, Eivor. I have dreamt of this day.”

“Of scouring the shire in search of a king?” She snorts, shaking muck from her boot after the marsh nearly swallows it.

“Of going a-vikingr with you!” He answers, raising his fists skyward and pumping them. “Conquering new lands, forming lasting friendships, side by side! And if it takes chasing some weasel across a new land, so be it. I am right where I wish to be, here, with you.”

“As am I,” she ducks her head, that he might not see the flush that has crept into her cheeks. His joy is catching, and the feeling behind his words heats her blood.

“Are you glad you came here with me?” He asks as they walk. “Or do you regret your choice?”

“It was never a choice for me,” she answers honestly. “I go where you go, so long as you will allow it.”

His hand catches hers, pulling her to a stop. “And I am glad of it, little drengr. With you at my side, there is nothing we cannot do.”

His eyes seek hers, and she senses that he is searching for something, though she is not sure what. She remains still, betraying nothing beneath his scrutiny. His gaze has a way of leaving her stripped bare, laying her spirit out for him to see and judge. For a moment, his brow furrows - and then the clouds clear from his eyes and he nods to himself, before his grin returns and his eyes gleam with eagerness for battle. The walls of Templebrough are closer, now, and she raises her horn to her lips - letting out its long, low, booming call.

Dag and his raiders surge across the shore, and she and Sigurd join them, whooping and calling to Odin and swinging sword and axe in a battle-fever that stirs the blood. The Saxons have numbers greater than their own, but they are timid as ever. Men who fear that which stands at the end of their blade fall as easily as cattle; The sight of Sigurd’s vikingr beating their shields and the sound of the fever pitch of their bellows makes Saxon knees go soft as their arms shake beneath the weight of their swords. They cry out to their dead god for strength, for courage, but he does not answer. But Odin answers her call, answers Sigurd’s booming roar for glory, answers the sacrifice made to him as it stains the earth at their feet. He lends strength to their arms and fury to their swings. He is pleased with their offering, and none shall stand before them now.

Sigurd is at her side, hewing and cleaving with a greatsword half the length of him. He fights as a man possessed, his blade whistling through the air and cleaving men in twain at the shoulder or splitting their skulls like kindling.  _ This _ is her Sigurd, son of a king and conqueror of kingdoms. A man worthy of her loyalty and trust and love. At times they are side by side. Other times, they are back to back, shoulders brushing as they twist and turn. She backs a Saxon into a corner, blocking each of his blows with her shield, and Sigurd fells the one flanking her with a flail raised. They laugh as they dance, battle lust singing in their veins. It is as the old days, when thatch burned and smoke darkened the air. When Kjotve’s men fell before them like wheat, cut by a great scythe.

They find the lady and her handmaids tucked away in the belly of the old keep. The women scream and cry out as Eivor’s axe tears through the flesh and bone of their guards. She steps aside when it is done, making way for Sigurd. 

“Lady Aethelswith,” he greets her, stepping over Eivor’s handiwork. “I see Burgred has done his best to hide you away. But what is lost must always be found.”

The lady meets his eyes, unflinching. “Let my handmaidens walk free of this place. They have nothing to do with our quarrel.”

Sigurd considers her words, then nods. “You hear that, Eivor? Noble. Selfless. This is the sort you must strike a bargain with. A woman of quality.” He waves a hand at the maids, who scatter like startled chickens.

His eyes roam pointedly to Eivor’s axe, still dripping blood. The droplets patter onto the dusty stone floor at her feet. He knows her preference for steel rather than gentle promises, and is showing her there are other ways to reach one’s ends. In this, they are different - and it only lends them strength. She is fire, and he is water - cooling her, when she burns too brightly. She shrugs and smirks, making no move to hide the bloodied blade from view. He rolls his eyes at her, turning back to the noblewoman.

“We only seek your king, lady,” he continues. "Tell us where Burgred hides, and we will leave without an ounce of blood spilt.”

“Please, I-I don’t know,” Aethelswith stammers, wringing her hands. 

“Effective, Sigurd,” Eivor snorts.

“She is only naïve to her present danger,” he answers with a darkening look, stepping close to the small and frail woman. He stands near two heads taller than her, and she peers up at him with wide and frightened eyes. “But she will soon understand.”

Aethelswith raises her hands in alarm, her back pressing into the stone wall behind her. They flutter like small white birds before her face, pleading and terrified in his ominous presence.

“Sigurd, _wait,”_ Eivor says in a low voice. “Her hands… look at them. Those are the hands of one who washes linens. A servant. She is a decoy.”

Sigurd peers at the handmaiden, and sees her words to be true. He shakes his head, irritated.

“I’ll catch the good lady Aethelswith,” she calls over her shoulder as she begins to run. “Tonight,  _ you _ buy the ale.”

He is a good man, as he has always been. At times far he is kinder than she, and it is only another ember in the fire that yet burns for him. An ember she threatens to put out herself, as she finds herself forced to swim after the fleeing lady Aethelswith. It will take her a week to dry out her boots after this.

-

  
  


The man on his knees before her is a sight she has seen before. It was not so long ago that she knelt like this before Kjotve the Cruel, beaten and bloody and waiting for death - prepared to fight to her last breath. His breathing is ragged and his wide shoulders might bow, but his eyes show no fear. Leofrith is not unlike her, not unlike her Ravens, and she finds herself reluctant to swing her axe and put an end to a warrior who has shown such honor and courage. 

_ “An honorable thegn, fighting a dishonorable war.” _ Odin’s voice drifts out from the fog as the mist and dark of Helheim materializes around her. His footsteps approach, and he stops beside her. Time and again he returns to her in these visions, and each time their talks leave her feeling twisted and torn. He is the all-father, the highest of all the gods, all-knowing and all-wise… and she finds herself often disagreeing with his words. It worries her. Has she grown soft, in this land of green? Has her ship gone adrift, and her eyes lost sight of what it means to be a vikingr?

“Burgred abandoned him, betrayed his trust,” she tells the all-father. “If I were Leofrith, I would want to know.”

Odin strokes his beard.  _ “Why rob him of this last glory? A warrior ready to meet his god and bask in praise? To live will only lead him to shame.” _

“It’s not an oath he would keep if he knew the truth.”

Odin’s one eye fixes on her.  _ “Then choose. Truth… or glory.” _

The fog clears, and the ground beneath her feet is solid once more. Leofrith waits for her decision, bleeding from the injuries he has sustained in their long and bloody fight. She returns her axe to her belt and crouches before the great man, placing her hands on his shoulders.

“Stand, Leofrith, and live to fight another day.” 

He raises his defeated head to meet her eyes, searching for reason in her face. _"_ _ What?” _

She holds his gaze. “Your loyalty to Burgred is not a loyalty returned. He resigned the crown and fled to Rome. He’s gone.”

“You lie,” Leofrith whispers.

“Lie to a man seconds from death?” She shakes her head. “What would I gain? He saved himself and left you to die. All this fighting… it’s for nothing. For no one.”

Leofrith’s chest heaves with the shock of her words, and she finds herself longing to ease the weight of them.

“To betray one so trusted, so close… It’s a dishonor worth a thousand deaths.” She moves her hands to his elbows, bidding him stand once more. He does so, unsteadily but balanced by her grip.

“You have done me a great kindness,” he tells her, his voice raw with pain - both in mind and spirit. “It is only fitting I do the same. At Venonis, there is a statue with a scroll laid in a small bowl. You must burn it.”

“A scroll?” She repeats, not understanding.

“Your name is on this scroll. At Burgred’s request, I put it there. When it is found, the Zealots who read it will hunt you.”

“Who are they?” She asks.

Leofrith shakes his head. “”It doesn’t matter now. You haven’t much time. Burn the scroll, or they will never stop hunting you.”

“Men have hunted me before,” she tells him. “But what of you? Where will you go?”

Leofrith shuffles to the water’s edge, his eyes hard as stone. _“Rome.”_

He is a man who seeks vengeance, and she has given him a chance at it. She watches him leave before turning to the wide-eyed Ceolbert. 

“We’d best get you back,” she says, then pauses. “You are injured. Let me take a look at you.”

Ceolbert stands still patiently as she turns his head to examine a shallow cut to one cheek, then looks over a glancing blow that has torn his doublet and scored the skin beneath. His eyes search her face as she pokes and prods him, before pronouncing that he will live.

“I did not think you would spare him,” he confesses.

“Why? Because I am a vikingr, and we deal in nothing but death?” She winks at him, pats his uninjured cheek hard enough to make him wince. “His death served no purpose, and I am not one for meaningless endeavors.”

“You are not like so many of the others,” Ceolbert pronounces, gazing up at her. “There is a gentleness to you.”

“Say such things to the others, Ceolbert son of Ceolwulf, and I might slay another Saxon yet,” she retorts, rumpling his flaxen hair. “Now come, we should return. Your father will be worried about his heir.”

She is rather fond of the little aetheling. He is bright and perceptive. Though he is soft from his tender years of peace, he has fought like a man this day. He is a boy no longer, and there is much potential in him to grow to be a great king. She only hopes that so much exposure to Ivarr will not addle his wits or twist the goodness in his heart. As much as she enjoys the wild and unpredictable nature of the son of Ragnar, he is hardly a man fit to mentor such a lad.

Ceolwulf greets them with immeasurable relief upon seeing his son. He asks Sigurd if Ceolbert might stay with their clan, back in Ravensthorpe, while tensions settle and his men purge the land of the last of Burgred’s loyal soldiers. In a kingdom only just turning from the precipice, it is not safe for Ceolbert here. Sigurd considers this, eyeing Ceolbert thoughtfully. 

“Do you have a horse of your own, boy?”

“I do,” he answers readily. “A noble steed named Theobald.”

“Then you may ride with me as far as the river Nene. Can you find your way from there?”

“I believe so,” Ceolbert nods. “I must go and pack my things.”

“Are you to leave again so soon?” She cannot help but ask, as Ceolbert rushes off.

“I must travel to Oxenefordcire,” Sigurd nods. “I have some allies I would meet with there. Do not look so defeated, Eivor. We will stay in Repton for the night. There is feasting and laughter to be had, for a new king sits on the Mercian throne.” He puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him, and together they walk back to the skeletal church.

  
  


-

  
  


There is great merriment that evening. Eivor finds herself caught up in it, despite the heaviness in her heart at the prospect of being separated from Sigurd once more. Ceolbert, at Ivarr’s urging, drinks half his weight in ale and ends up snoring softly beneath the table at her feet. Ubba lifts his horn again and again, to cries of  _ skal,  _ and the drengr that surround him rise to the challenge. Eivor’s skin hums with a murmur like many happy bees, and her vision is made soft and hazy by drink. Sigurd sits across from her, and she can see by the flush to his cheeks and the shine in his eyes that he is as far-gone as she.

“I  _ will _ call for you when it is time,” he tells her, seeing the disquiet that still lurks at the back of her mind. “There is much to do in this new land. But we will be together again soon, and gods willing, there will be many more battles fought side by side.”

She will not plead with him to take her along. Such words belong on Dag’s lips, and she is loathe to emulate such a man. She only shakes her head and takes another drink.

“You leave me to forge new alliances in your stead, and I am a hammer, where you should have an arrow.”

He sighs. “You are the only one I trust to do as I would do and make choices that would honor our clan.”

“I thought…” She pauses, the ale emboldening her. “I thought we would have more time together, in this new world. We have spent half our lives apart, with your father’s meddling between us. I wanted... I’d hoped… there would be more, here.”

“I do not take pleasure in being apart from you any more than you do in being apart from me,” he chides gently. “Do you think it is easy for me?”

“Isn’t it?” She presses. “You leave as a wind might blow through an open window, just as you always have. There and gone again, staying just long enough to stir the dust upon the floor-planks.”

He sets his tankard down and stares at her in a way that turns her blood to ice.

“You do not make it easy for me to leave, Eivor. For when we are apart, your dreams are wont to drive me to madness.”

“My dreams?” She echoes.

“Did you think you were the only one to walk upon a sea of blood-bright flowers?” His eyes pierce her through, sharp and cunning as a god-wielded spear. “That the man whose lips meet yours is a mere shade of your dreamscape?”

“You--” She is suddenly without air in her lungs, and the cadence of her heart in her ears is deafening. “You are…  _ There? _ You walk amongst my dreams?”

“When you dream, I see it unfold in my mind’s eye, as real to me as though I were there myself. Do you not remember the first time? I held you in my arms, both in Midgard and in the world of dreams. You spoke to me, and I spoke to you - my voice split between two worlds. I walked with you, grass and flowers beneath my feet just as my boots walked the floor of the longhouse.”

She cannot speak. No words come, as though Brokkr has sewn her lips shut as securely as he once did the trickster Loki’s.

“You tell me this cannot be,” he presses on, “And I have accepted it, and done my best to understand your reasons. But how can I forget such a thing, when night after night I feel you calling to me, beckoning me to your arms. Would that I  _ had _ the power to bring an end to this torture, though… I am not sure I could, were I to wield it. It is an agony that burns me, but there is such sweetness in the pain.” 

“What twisted  _ seidr _ could create such a connection between us?” She whispers. “Have we been cursed?”

“Is it a curse?” He asks, “Or is it the threads of fate, binding us together? Perhaps you are wrong, and we  _ are  _ meant to be together. You are struggling against ties that are meant to be. The Nornir show you the way, though you fight it still.”

_ You will betray Sigurd.  _

She has no way of knowing when or how such a thing may happen, and she will not allow for the prophecy to take root. If this bond between them is the Nornir’s way of forcing her hand, she will give them neither soil nor water with which to grow their twisted seed.

“That cannot be its meaning,” she balks, shaking her head hard enough that her silver bands clink softly against each other. “Valka told me--” and then she stops, lips closing over the words that wish to be freed.

“What did Valka tell you?” He demands. “What have you been hiding from me?”

“I cannot do this,” she rises to feet made unsteady by drink. “I told you in Alrekstad this cannot be, and you made an oath to me on that same hill. You promised to let the bones of this lie where they were buried.  _ Please, _ Sigurd. Let them be. If this is what the Nornir wished, then it would not be Randvi who lay with you in your marriage bed. Your union was fated, as is our separation. The threads have been woven, Sigurd, and I’ll not interfere.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again the blue fire is gone from them. He is himself once more, the Sigurd who is always kind and gentle to her, and there is no ill will to be found within his gaze nor in the forgiving smile on his lips. 

“I know, little drengr. And I shall honor that oath, though it kills me to do so.”

She leaves, taking her tankard with her, and he does not follow. Her heart is broken; a hundred pieces of it spilled to the ground like a shield shattered in battle. She longs to strike something, to break stone or skull until this feeling ebbs. There is nothing to destroy, for Repton is once again peaceful as Saxon and Danes alike sleep in their beds. She spies Ivarr, who leans against the wall of a Saxon home, whittling at something with his knife.

_ “Eivor, _ for shame. You have left the party with drengr still standing. Have you lost your taste for drink?”

She raises her tankard, draining the last draught of ale before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. The tankard rolls down the earthen path at her feet.

“Shut up, Ivarr. You caw more than a half-starved crow,” she tells him, grabbing him by the strapping of his armor. He makes no protest as she leads him behind her and down the muddy street, nor does he complain when she shoves him onto his back in the soft hay piled high within the old barn. She cannot have Sigurd, nor will she let the Nornir twist her as they please. She will destroy something this night, but it will only be herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of you hate Ivarr. Please forgive me. That's kind of the point of her decision here.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert - I mention the East Anglia arc in this.

She leaves Ivarr sleeping in a drunken heap, hay sticking out every which way from his tangled hair and a pleased smile still on his lips. She is not concerned that he will expect more from her. He is a vikingr, and understands the way of things - more so than most. He is pure viking, as was his father before him. It is something she recognizes and respects, though he inspires fear in those who do not understand their ways. Saxons think him mad, and perhaps he is - though even the gods themselves have been known to experience fits of equal madness. He is a true warrior, his thirst for glory boundless. He is more of one than she, with her increasingly England-addled hugr. She cannot help but fight against the change in her, for fear she is walking the path of her father or of Styrbjorn. If they are to take this land and make it their own, they must be strong. _She_ must be strong. She cannot bend her knee and she cannot falter at the first sound of soft words.

She roams the countryside for two days - scouting ruins and killing Saxon soldiers, brawling in taverns and soaking herself in ale - until she feels like a proper drengr once more, and the memories of Repton are little more than a bitter taste in her mouth. This land is beautiful, and old. Ancient magic hums beneath the surface of it. She can feel it in the ruins, in the remnants of the old civilizations lost to time or changed to be something else. There is comfort in it, far as she may be from Norway. This land was not always run by posturing kings fighting over thrones as dogs might snap and snarl over table scraps. Their great armies of Saxon soldiers would rather piss themselves with fear than fight a Viking horde. She returns home with an empty heart and a head splitting from far too much ale, but she has found some peace in her respite. Her dreams are quiet and still, as an undisturbed lake. Through sheer force of will, the field of flowers does not come.

Randvi brightens like the peak of a mountain at dawn upon seeing her, though she is more restrained than Ceolbert, who jogs towards her with such glee that Svaðilfari tosses his great head and snorts in alarm. She is surprised to see so many new faces. Many have joined their clan, and there are new tents and temporary trade booths set up, Saxon and Dane alike. She spies Dag from afar, and he only mutters darkly before ducking into the barracks. There is a storm brewing in his mind, and she expects in time it will turn into a full tempest - directed solely at her. Despite her doing as Sigurd orders, Dag would never direct his ire at his beloved Jarl. Instead, she will bear the brunt of it. He questions her decisions at every turn, and challenges her right to make judgements for the clan. She wishes Sigurd were here, to cool the fire of his temper… But there is no telling when he may return, and until then, she must step carefully.

Ceolbert is eager to see the surrounding countryside, as he has spent these last two days pent up in the longhouse, shadowing Randvi’s every step. Eivor decides to take him fishing. By his own words, the aetheling is fond of the sport. She is not so keen on it, but the thought of fresh fish for dinner is tempting enough. When he has saddled his horse, they ride out of Ravensthorpe and follow the winding river. There is a place she goes to, when her mind is troubled. Not to fish, but to meditate - though it is close to the water, and schools of fish leap and dance on the surface with flashes of silver and rainbow. 

Ceolbert’s eyes widen at the little clearing on the edge of the water, and he declares it the perfect spot. He shows Eivor the proper way to cast a line, explaining how to guide and lure the fish in without it breaking free. She sits on a rock and watches him, enjoying the way his eyes shine and his toes wiggle in the mud. He speaks without end, from a fount of bottomless words and stories. He is the son of a king, and despite such a burden, his heart is light. Much in the way Sigurd’s often is, with his easy smiles and booming laugh. Ceolbert and Sigurd are alike, in that they bend but do not break beneath the weight of their station.

“You and Sigurd are close,” Ceolbert says. “But he is not your true brother?”

“No,” she says, tugging impatiently at her slack line. “My family, my clan… were killed. Sigurd’s father took me in, raised me as his own. Sigurd is… well, he is all I have. He is the only family I need.”

“He is very fond of you.” Ceolbert’s eyes lack the knowing gleam Birna’s held. He sees much, but he is an innocent to the ways of love. “On our ride back from Repton, he told me many stories. The best ones were of you.”

“No doubt his tongue has greatly exceeded the truth of me, little lordling.” She is smiling, despite herself. The sun is warm on her back, the water clear and sparkling before them. It is a good day to go fishing.

The beat of wings, low and heavy, harkens to Synin's arrival. Eivor raises her hand, and the great raven lands delicately on her bracer. Ceowulf’s eyes widen in awe, his mouth dropping open in surprise.

“Is that… your pet?” He asks admiringly.

“Synin is no pet. She is a friend, and my guide through Midgard. She has been with me through many battles, and her presence is by her choice alone.”

“May I… Touch her?” Ceolbert extends his hand, then withdraws it fearfully, as though the raven might peck at him.

“Do not ask me, lord. Ask her.” 

Ceolbert clears his throat, and extends his arm in a mirror of her posture. “Lady Synin, I humbly request your company. If it pleases you.”

Synin eyes the boy’s slender hand with one glittering black eye, flutters her feathers, and then hops nimbly from Eivor’s arm to Ceolbert’s. He is without armor, and though he gasps softly as her feet clutch at him for purchase, he remains perfectly still. Synin lowers her head in an inviting manner, and Ceolbert carefully lifts his hand and delicately strokes the gleaming feathers atop her head.

“She is ever so lovely,” he breathes. “I do not think I have ever been so close to a raven. You said she is your… guide? What do you mean?”

Eivor spreads her hands, shrugs. “It is hard to explain. She and I are of one hugr. What she sees, I see. Just as she can see through my own eyes.”

“That cannot be,” Ceolbert answers dubiously. 

“Do not doubt me, little aetheling. I’ll feed you to the fish.”

“Such a thing would be… well, it would be witchcraft.” He looks uncertain, though more interested than disturbed by this revelation. 

Eivor laughs, loud enough to startle the fish away from her line. “You believe in one god, but we believe in many. Is it so hard to believe that perhaps Odin has touched me, and sent Synin to my side?”

“I am not sure I believe any of this,” he admits, shaking his head. “I have never seen such a thing.”

“Then watch, little lord. And if I prove myself, I get to toss you into the river.”

“A fair wager,” he admits. “For if I call you a liar and am wrong, I should deserve such a dunking.”

“Fly, Synin,” Eivor whispers, and her raven answers the call - lifting herself gracefully from Ceolbert’s arm and circling up into the sky. Eivor closes her eyes, focusing on what Synin sees. 

“There is a pack of wolves beneath the trees upriver,” she says after a time, not opening her eyes. “They are sleeping in the sun, idle after making a fresh kill. Synin will bring you a beakful of white fur from their leader.”

She opens her eyes to see Ceolbert watching her carefully, a mix of scepticism and fascination on his face. Several minutes pass, and then Synin reappears, spiraling down in lazy circles. Slowly, as though in a dream, Ceolbert lifts his arm once more and the raven lands on it. In her beak, she holds a tuft of thick and soft white fur. He raises his other hand, and she deposits it in his palm, looking rather pleased with her treasure.

“Incredible,” Ceolbert breathed. “I do not know if it is your god or mine that is looking out for you, Eivor Wolf-Kissed, but… You and your raven are a true marvel. I can see why Sigurd is so fond of you. It is impossible not to be awed by you.”

“Those are the words of a skald,” she laughs. “Save them for those who wish to have their ears bent by praise. Now, on your feet, your lordship. I believe I have a ritual drowning to perform.”

They are still laughing and Ceolbert is shaking water from his ears when the low, booming call of a horn sounds from the direction of Ravensthorpe. Her head snaps to attention, and she reaches for her axe reflexively.

“Stay close to me,” she orders him, the moment of mirth broken. “Ravensthorpe is under attack.”

-

  
  


She leans against the stone wall of the old church, arms folded, watching as Valdis and Oswald are sealed in marriage. She has seen her share of weddings, though she has always done her best to avoid the ceremony and go straight to the drinking and inevitable fighting. The last wedding she willingly attended was Sigurd and Randvi’s, a memory which pains her even still. While this somewhat stiff affair is far from a proper viking celebration, there is a quality to it that makes it somehow far sweeter. Oswald and Valdis are more than a tie between clans, whatever Halfdan’s machinations. Theirs is a bond made with love. Oswald, gentle of heart and with enough courage in his slender frame to rival Thor’s, stands before his bride with shining eyes and a smile upon his lips. In this moment, he sees nothing but Valdis. It is clear Valdis feels as enraptured as he, though as a battle-born warrior she is not so easily read.

Finnr, close to her elbow, speaks. “What of you, Eivor? Will the day come when you set your axe to rest and seek a life of peace and comfort?”

She wonders if her face has betrayed her. If the sight of Oswald and Valdis holding hands and gazing at each other like two besotten moon-calfs has allowed her own longing to steal into her face, there for anyone who casts an eye her way to see. She cannot help but look at what is, and think of what might have been.

“We are vikingr, Finnr. Though you are more salt-cured than I. We live, we fight, we seek glory… and when we die, the great gates of Valhalla open to us. Odin welcomes us with open arms, and we feast at his side and fight in his name as einherjar for eternity after. That is the way of things. There is nothing else beyond this. Our fates are woven.”

Finnr nods, accepting this. “When I was young, as you are now, my heart had the same surety of words. Perhaps one day, when you are old like me, we will feast side by side in the corpse hall.”

“You can count on it, friend,” she answers.

She is not fated for such a life. She will marry no king, nor dress in fine gowns. She has no such desire for these things. She is a vikingr, and she would far rather find death at the end of an axe blade than allow old age to seep into her bones. This is the only life she would choose for herself, were the Nornir given to accommodating mortal whims. They have taken the only thing from her she has ever truly wanted, and she will accept it.

After the ceremony, she makes the most of the wedding feast. She eats, she dances, she drinks until there are two Brothirs standing before her rather than one. When Broder approaches her, eyes burning with a fire set alight by her, she allows him his fiercest desire. It has been a long and tiring battle to see Oswald crowned at last, and though her body is still weary from her fight with Rued and her thirst for glory is somewhat quenched, she is little satisfied. There is comfort and release to be found in another’s arms. A peaceful forgetting of what ails her heart. She takes Broder by the hand and leads him away from the piss-drunk Saxons and the Danes howling and laughing over roast boar and bottomless barrels of mead. His eyes are wide as the moon hanging bright in the sky when it is done, and she laughs as she straightens her cloak and he laces his breeches once more.

“If you do not close your mouth, Broder, the chickens will think it a home and take roost there.”

“Gods, Eivor. That’s worth a verse or two in some skald’s song,” he stumbles.

“A song only you would pay to hear,” she snorts. 

They return to the feast amidst knowing jeers and jests, and Broder’s chest puffs out to that of a man twice his size. She raises her drinking horn in a toast to his prowess, and there is much hooting and hollering and clapping of hands from the Danes. The Saxons watch wide-eyed, shocked by the spectacle.

Rued stumbles into the midst of the drunken crowd as Oswald delivers his first address as king. He has killed his guards and escaped, and there is bloodlust in his eyes as he bellows his demand for a holmgang. He drags one leg, and favors his left arm. She left her mark on him, and he has yet to recover. Oswald, her soft-hearted friend, raises his sword in answer to Rued’s challenge. Many times now, he has surprised her. Finnr was wise in his choosing of Oswald, for though on the surface he seems gentle and timid, there is a fire in his heart that burns as hot as any true vikingr’s. He matches each of Rued’s strikes with one of his own, and when the great man falls to his knee for the second time in as many days, he does not get up again. He waits, head hanging low, eyes alight with fury and shame at his failure.

Oswald does not strike. He stays his hand, sparing Rued’s life and granting him exile rather than a blade’s edge. It is a show of mercy that the assembled Danes find baffling, and it eats at Eivor all the long miles home. She does not understand these christians and their strange ways. Rued, by all the old laws, should have died for the damage he caused. To see him banished, forgiven - it does not sit easy in her chest. Leofrith knelt at her feet in Repton, and she, too, spared him… But Leofrith was an honorable man, serving a dishonorable king. 

  
  


-

  
  


Sigurd is waiting for her atop a hill. He is seated with his elbows resting on his knees, his hair unbound and wearing soft leather breeches and a loose linen tunic. She approaches warily, afraid she will see the sting of their last words in his eyes, but he is the same old Sigurd in this dream. He smiles at her, beckoning, and she takes her place at his side amongst the nodding flowers. He puts an arm around her shoulders and she leans into him; a piece of a puzzle finding its way home.

“I am sorry.” They are the first words that rise from her, and she has long wanted to say them to him.

“There is nothing to be sorry for.” He holds her against him tightly, kisses the top of her head.

“You have been gone for a very long time,” she says, resting her head against his chest.

“There is much to do,” he answers. “But I will call for you, soon. When the time is right.”

“I should be at your side,” she sighs. “Ravensthorpe is an empty cup and a cold hearth without your presence.”

He laughs softly. “I have missed you, too, little drengr. There will come a time when we will have many days of feasting and drinking and laughter. But first we must build our kingdom, one stone at a time.”

“I have been carrying many stones at once,” she chides. 

“So I hear. Randvi has been sending me news of your progress.”

It is evening, in their sea of flowers. The sun dips low in the horizon, and the velvety petals are bathed in amber light. Their petals are more red than they have ever been; brighter than an axe blade having just tasted battle. She exhales, and it is a breath she has been holding in for the long months spanning the distance between the last time she saw him and now. She has not allowed herself to dream of the red flowers. She has not trusted herself to.

“What did Valka tell you?” he asks again. 

“It does not matter,” she answers. “What has been woven is my burden to bear alone.”

“A heavy burden, that would be lighter for two pairs of hands holding it. Eivor, you have never kept secrets from me. Has England changed you so much?”

It has changed her, she knows. But she is not the only one who has been keeping secrets, and so she holds her tongue.

“Leave it for another time,” she pleads. “And instead, tell me a story - that I might wake without a memory of this burden.”

He pulls her tighter to him, the pressure of his arm both reassuring and making her very bones ache. “Very well. Long ago, in a land of stone and frost and frigid seas, there was a little drengr named Eivor.”

“I know this one,” she groans.

“Do not interrupt your skald,” he growls, stroking her crown of braids. “Eivor thought much of herself. ‘Look at me,’ she would cry, as she leapt from river rock to river rock. ‘I am nimble as Freyja’s cats.’ Other times, she would swing from the branches of trees and proclaim herself a bird. ‘I am an eagle,’ she would say. ‘As swift as the wind that chases the waves. None can catch me.’” His imitation of her is high and girlish, and she cannot help but laugh at it.

“Best get to the good part, before I fall asleep in my own dream,” she threatens.

“Everyone in the clan knew it was not Eivor who was the fastest and the fleetest, but that these titles belonged to a mighty and fearsome vikingr named Sigurd. He was the tallest man in Norway, and he swung his sword with a strength so great that Thor himself looked on with envy and fear.”

“He was nothing but long arms and legs, and possessed little else of use,” she laughs. “And his beard was a mere three hairs, as short and wispy as new spring grass.”

“He was not,” Sigurd nuzzles her, scratching her cheek with his beard. “He was a mighty warrior, I tell you. Now, the little drengr Eivor was jealous of the mighty Sigurd. ‘Sigurd,’ she said one day, in a voice so high and thin it might shatter river ice, ‘Let us have a race. Whoever can run from one end of Fornburg to the other fastest will be crowned champion, and the loser must place a big, fat kiss on Helgi’s fattest pig’s snout.’ Sigurd accepted her challenge with grace, for she was very small and he was very large, and he pitied her for being so cursedly tiny.”

“He was an overgrown ox with five winters on her,” Eivor protests again. She yelps, as Sigurd pinches her side.

“The day of the great race dawned, and though the clan had been summoned, none were there to watch. It was only Sigurd the Mighty against Eivor the Spritely. ‘What are the rules?’ He asked of the wicked fiend. ‘There are no rules,’ she answered, before taking off like a deer startled by wolves. She was fast and nimble indeed, far faster than Sigurd the Great had anticipated. She leaped over fences, danced around geese, flitting through the air like a bit of down on a summer’s breeze. Sigurd could not let himself be outdone, for the gods were watching and he had a reputation to protect.”

“Sigurd the Great tried to cheat.”

“Eivor the Spritely herself declared there were no rules,” he replies stolidly. “Now, Sigurd was as clever as he was strong. He knew if he did not act quickly, he would lose. With the grace of a swan, he dove onto a nearby horse’s back. He was fast, but a horse would be faster than even the dreadful Eivor.”

“Sigurd had a nasty surprise coming, didn’t he.”

Sigurd sighs mournfully. “As wise as Sigurd was, fate was not kind to him that day. The horse was so startled by his sudden presence, it immediately reared up and twisted and bucked beneath him. Sigurd tried to hold on, like Thor wrestling the mighty Jörmungandr… But his strength failed him, and our brave and honorable vikingr sailed over the hateful beast’s two ears and crashed into the fishmonger’s tables.”

“Sigurd the Great was covered in the leavings and entrails of fish, and smelled like a rotten sea for a week.”

“Sigurd the Great’s broken arm took two full cycles of the moon to heal,” he chuckles at the memory. “But all was not lost. For despite his... _creativity_ in combat, Eivor forgave him. She was as kind then as she is now. She was at his side while he recovered, both in body and in ego. She brought him gifts and sweets, told him many tales, and let him win at orlog. She also mocked him endlessly, for his stupidity.”

“Eivor sounds like a mighty and magnanimous sort,” she says. “I should like to meet her, and congratulate her on her victory.”

He laughs, loud and rich. “She is that, and more. She is… _Everything.”_

There is a long moment of comfortable silence before she says, “You left off the best part of the story. My favorite part.”

“I was hoping you’d forget.”

“Not likely,” she laughs. “For I will never forget the look on your face when you tried to kiss that pig and it drove you into the mud, arse first.. Sigurd the Great, indeed. Lord of pig shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a portrait of Eivor and Svaðilfari. <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Randvi and Ivarr spoilers ahead. <3
> 
> \--------------------------

Her arrival in Ravensthorpe is a quiet one. Ceolbert is not here to greet her with his enthusiasm and questions, having been called away by his father to Sciropescire - and Randvi is distant, her eyes listless and unfocused. She paces back and forth before the alliance table, restless, hands fidgeting with vellums or moving pieces around.

“Randvi, be still,” Eivor says gently, leaning over the table and stilling Randvi’s hands with one of her own. “You flutter about like a bird caught in a snare. Is something wrong? Has something happened?”

“I am fine,” Randvi’s voice is as strained as her words. “Only a little tired, but well enough. Shall we look at the map?”

Eivor folds her arms. “Snow fox, you are not the only one with a nose for deception. Tell me what troubles you.”

Randvi yields with a sigh, hugging herself with her arms. “I have been… Feeling somewhat trapped. In this room, in this settlement, in this life.”

She contemplates this. “I cannot fix your life, but I _can_ get you out of this room.”

“I don’t know, Eivor…” Hope is tempered by a sense of duty in Randvi’s eyes. “There is work to be done, and I--”

“Will leave this room with me, else I’ll carry you over my shoulder. Like a sack of grain.”

Randvi laughs, lifting her hands in surrender. “Where will we go?”

“Let’s take a ride. We could go to Grantebridge, or somewhere nearby. Soma is sure to be welcoming. We can stop and feast with her clan, or soak our heads in mead, or set something ablaze.”

“I would hope nothing of hers, lest you mean to destroy the alliance you only just forged.” Randvi’s words are reproving, but her eyes dance.

“Then let us be off,” she says, already walking towards the door.

“Eivor, I’m not sure. It is perhaps too far.” 

“Like a sack of grain,” she threatens once more over her shoulder.

Svaðilfari stands patiently as Eivor leaps into his saddle, then pulls Randvi up behind her. They ride out of Ravensthorpe, and with each step beyond the settlement’s borders, the tension and unease in her friend lessens. The day is bright and lovely, with sunkissed slopes of verdant green and wildflowers in full bloom. She urges Svaðilfari into a canter once they cross the river, and Randvi laughs and releases her hold on Eivor’s waist, extending her arms out to her sides like wings, laughing in exhilarated delight.

“It really is lovely here,” Randvi cries over the drumbeats of Svaðilfari’s hooves. “I have not been this far east of the settlement. Isn’t that awful?”

“You live your life in safety. You think it awful?” 

“It is, to live one’s life in so small a pen… and hear only stories from you and the scouts without ever venturing further.” She takes in a heady breath, before returning her hands to Eivor’s sides. “Gods, do you smell that? The earth and the air. It is good to be out here.”

As it has always been, their prison is a shared one. Both thought to find a better life in this new land, and for their troubles to remain on the shores of Norway. It is not to be so - for once more, Sigurd has strayed from both their sides. Eivor must carry out his wishes without him, and Randvi must watch over the clan. She is without them both, truly, for these past months Eivor is no more present in her life than Sigurd has been. Even Ceolbert is gone now, and it is an absence felt deeply by both of them. Ranvdi’s world is forever limited to the walls of a longhouse and an empty bed. There is no small guilt that comes with that realization, for while Randvi languishes in isolation, Eivor has the comfort of her shared dreams to ease the pain. She has betrayed her friend, though Randvi does not know it’s sting.

She is disappointed to find Soma a week gone, having left with a band of men to seek out a new trade route. She has left Magni behind, a man with eyes for nothing but Randvi the moment their boots set foot in the longhouse.

“Well met, Randvi,” he says as he inclines his head to her with gleaming eyes. “Eivor seems to have a preference for befriending lovely women.”

“Yes,” Randvi laughs. “I have noticed that as well.”

“And how have you fared in Soma’s mighty footsteps?” Eivor asks, ignoring Randvi’s jest. 

Magni shakes his head. “Only now, in times of trouble, have I discovered I am not the surrogate leader I should hope to be.”

“Has there been trouble?” Randvi asks, now curious.

Magni frowns, his mood darkening. “Oh, a pack of surly bandits have encamped nearby. To the east, at the water’s edge.They attack all merchants who travel here by river or road, and word is spreading quickly. It’s keeping traders at bay.”

“That could cripple your town if it goes on too long,” Eivor interjects. 

“Ha!” Magni laughs. “It has crippled me already! The bastards stole my horse yestermorning.”

She knows she should return Randvi to Ravensthorpe and then seek out these bandits. Soma is an ally, and as such, she has earned the Raven clan’s aid. If bandits threaten the well-being of an ally, they threaten her own clan. She opens her mouth to speak, but Randvi - eyes shining like a fox who has found a rabbit in her jaws - speaks first.

“We can take care of them Magni!” She offers. “And if we do not find your horse, we still steal you a new one.”

“That would certainly ease my mind,” Magni says cautiously, though he peers at Randvi somewhat suspiciously. She hardly looks fit for making war, in her soft blue tunic and leather leggings. “If you are sure.” He looks to Eivor questioningly, and she nods, struggling to hide a smile that tugs at her lips.

“You heard my battle-seasoned vikingr. We will help.”

“Good! Then it is settled.” Randvi claps her hand together eagerly, a starved woman standing before a mighty feast. “Eivor, come! We have a camp to raid.” And with that, she turns and leaves Eivor and Magni staring after her.

“What a woman!” Magni proclaims. “Is she--”

“Married. To our Jarl.” Eivor cannot help but grin, and Magni raises his hands in a defensive gesture.

“Not for all the furs and silver in England, then. Forget my words took flight.”

She wonders, as she and Randvi ride towards the camp, what Sigurd would do should Randvi seek the warmth of another’s hearth and bed. In truth, despite the distance between he and his wife, there is much affection between them. She is simply unseen - A candle’s flame in the presence of the sun when it is a choice between she and Eivor. It is a fact Eivor both regrets, and finds heartening. She has known the touch of other men, felt the fire of passion in her belly - but none will ever stir her heart, as Sigurd does. There is only one vikingr who may reach that far away and dark land, and it is he.

She has never before seen Randvi as she is now. She has come alive as one might who has slept for a hundred winters. Stiff to rise, slow to shake the dust from her bones… and then burning fire-bright as memory of a life once lived returns to her. She spins and turns, slashing and diving with her axe. She kills one bandit to every two of Eivor’s, and when it is done and they stop to fill their lungs once more, she laughs at her blood-stained tunic and leaps onto the back of Magni’s stolen horse, challenging Eivor to race her back to Grantebridge.

Upon their return to the longhouse, Randvi insists on a drinking contest. She manages to drain two horns, choking and sputtering as she tries to keep up with a more seasoned Eivor, before declaring her friend the true Mead Queen. Magni watches from afar, fear and admiration warring on his face. Eivor is reeling from both the mead and the suddenness of Randvi’s change of temper, though she is not displeased by it. _This is the way she once was,_ she thinks to herself, as she pushes a rather drunken Randvi back up onto Svaðilfari’s broad back. _Before an arranged marriage separated her from her clan and an empty bed ate away at her, leaving little left but bone._ Her head is ringing like a bell, the pounding of Svaðilfari’s great hooves on Grantebridge streets doing little to ease it. Randvi giggles softly, encircling Eivor’s waist with her arms, and rests her weight against her back.

“I think you may have punctured poor Magni’s heart back there,” she teases her friend.

“What can I say?” Randi answers. “He is not the first, and he will not be the last.”

“Oh! The lady with a heart of iron,” she laughs. “I name you Randvi, Slayer of Bandits and Breaker of Hearts.”

“I will sound it with pride,” Randvi pronounces, holding a little tighter as Svaðilfari speeds to a slow canter. “Eivor... I find myself reluctant to return. Would you take me somewhere?”

“Where do you wish to go now? A merchant, to buy a new tunic? A shame, for the life-wine of bandits becomes you.”

Randvi laughs. “No, no. This tunic I shall wear with pride. Sunniva once described a great sunken tower to me. A desolate yet peaceful place. I am eager to see it.”

“After a full day of adventure, _finally_ you wish to calm down. You are in luck, for I know the tower you speak of. It is not so far.”

She turns Svaðilfari off the road to Ravensthorpe, and Randvi is silent for a time as green fields give way to hills bedecked with berry bushes and high trees. 

“Do _you_ break many hearts, Eivor?” She asks suddenly.

“The mead has certainly loosened your tongue, Randvi,” she chides gently. “Why do you ask?”

“You must get… lonely. Where others seek love, or marriage, you seem to remain aloof. A lone wolf, who prefers the company of her raven.”

“Synin does not snore or fart, and leaves when I have no further need of her.”

“Eivor!” Randvi giggles again. It is a high and sweet and girlish sound, and speaks of a time in her life when she was not so heavily burdened by her station. 

“To answer you…Much as food or drink, I take what I need and only that much. I will leave marriage and the making of babies to the wives of kings and jarls. I’ve no need for such things. I need only my axe.” She is thinking of Oswald and Valdis once more, and the memory burns like a hot blade in her chest.

She does not mean for the words to sting, and too late to stop them, they tumble from her. Randvi is not the only one warmed by the mead, and her tongue has taken a mind of its own. Randvi’s arms loosen about her waist, and she thinks perhaps she has wounded her friend too deeply. But her hold tightens once more, and she only sighs as she returns her cheek to rest against Eivor’s shoulder.

“I did not mean--” she begins to say, and Randvi shushes her with a squeeze.

“Do not apologize. It is the truth of things, and though the truth is often hard to bear, it is necessary.”

_I stole your husband and your future, before you were ever given the chance to claim them,_ she thinks. _And my protests were far too little, far too late - for he has been in my heart all these long years, as I have been in his._ Words she cannot say, or ever speak - for it is a truth that will only twist a knife in Randvi’s back. Words she may never take back, once spilled. And so she is silent, and neither of them speak again until the tower rises from its watery grave before them. Vines wind their way up ancient stone, and water birds rest on the highest walls, watching with bright eyes as they approach. The water is emerald green from algae, and little white flowers float on the surface like snowflakes that will never melt. The tower is indeed lovely, and it has not changed since her last ride through this place. She brings Svaðilfari to a stop at the edge of the bridge, and Randvi leaps from his back - stumbling only a little, for she is still somewhat drunk.

“Come, Eivor!” She cries, gesturing. “Let us climb to the top!” 

She leaps into the water as naturally as any water-born fish, and Eivor sheds her heavy cloak before diving into the cool water as well. Randvi is blessed with many secret talents, for she climbs as nimbly as a mountain goat up the weathered stones with their cracked mortar. She is panting at the top when Eivor reaches it, inspecting her scraped hands and scuffed boots, but otherwise pleased with herself. 

“Look at the stunning view,” Randvi says, gesturing at the landscape below. “It reminds me of my early years in Norway. How I used to climb the hills beyond the wood.”

“You fight like a wounded boar, drink like a longboat with a hole in the bottom, and climb as quickly as a cat chasing it’s dinner,” Eivor laughs, shaking her head. “You would have made a fine shield maiden, Randvi. None would withstand your wicked blade on the battlefield.”

“Ah, perhaps,” Randvi smiles sadly. “But I had the misfortune of being born a jarl’s daughter. There was no adventuring or battle fated for me. My duty was to secure my clan’s future. I wonder, were things different, if you would be where I am now. Before you were an orphan, you were also a jarl’s daughter. If not for Kjotve, you might have walked a very different path. I can see you now… gentle and soft, married off to some lord and with many sons crawling about your feet.”

“Continue to speak of such things, and I’ll toss you from this tower,” she threatens. 

Randvi only laughs, knowing the words to be harmless. “I was rowdy in my youth, much as you,” she admits. “Hunting, sailing. I was a wildling of the open air, before I became the staunch and stoic woman you see before you. Being married off to secure peace between two clans was a noble and worthy role, but not one I had ever imagined for myself.”

“Without your marriage to Sigurd, we might have met as enemies across a battlefield,” Eivor says gently. “For our clans would likely still have been at war.”

“True,” Randvi admits. She turns to look at the scenery before them once more. “Thank you for this day, Eivor. Every bit of it has been a dream and I… am not keen to wake.”

“Then don’t. We can stay as long as you like.”

Something shifts in Randvi’s eyes, then. A glimmer of sun on the surface of a pond. The kiss is unexpected. In one moment, Randvi has gone from looking to leaning - her lips brushing against Eivor’s own, a gently fluttering contact that deepens into a heartfelt and passionate expression of yearning. She cannot move, cannot breathe. Her body is frozen in place, feet rooted to stone, her stunned eyes focused on Randvi’s peaceful expression. Randvi’s eyes are closed, lashes the same red as fox fur trembling against her cheeks. When she opens them once more and meets Eivor’s gaze, she stumbles back with a startled gasp.

“What was that?” Eivor asks, still stumbling beneath the weight of what has just happened.

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, I--” Randvi is stammering, her fingers pressed to her lips. “I shouldn’t have. I got away from myself.”

“There is no need to apologize,” she says, but even as she says it, she shifts a step back. If she were not so stunned, she might laugh from the sheer cruelty of the situation before her. It would seem the Nornir are not done plucking at threads.

  
  


“Sigurd is your brother, and I have put you in a very difficult position,” Randvi continues. “The heart does not do politics like the head.”

“We have both had much to drink.” She wants to be reassuring, hopes that it is indeed the mead that has spurred this action. 

“I am sober enough,” Randvi protests, her voice softening as her eyes do. “But the truth of it is… I have felt this way for some time now. For many winters, you have been… the one that has kept me going. You have eased the loneliness in my heart, and brought me joy where I thought there to be none. I have grown to love you, beyond the bonds of friendship. I cannot look at you without longing for more. Each day, this feeling has grown in me, until I feel I might burst from it.”

They have done this to her, she and Sigurd. He, with his long absences and distant eyes… and she, with her inability to keep herself from him. They have robbed Randvi of her joy, and in her desire to be loved she has turned to the last person she should. Eivor, of Two Faces - the woman who loves her husband, and cannot love her.

“You honor me with your feelings, sweet snow fox. But my heart is not open to such things. I cannot… return your love, for I do not feel it the same way. I value you as a friend. I hope that does not disappoint. It is my highest praise.”

The clouds return to Randvi’s eyes at her words, dimming the light she has only just found again, and though she remains standing tall she folds in on herself like a flower crumpled in an unyielding fist. “Of course,” she nods. “Thank you. I do apologize. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You need feel no shame,” Eivor answers. “This stays between us. At worst, we had a beautiful day. As friends and kindred spirits.”

There is little more to say. She has taken the last of Randvi’s spark and crushed it beneath her boot. They stay atop the tower for a while, speaking of mundane things and allowing the late afternoon sun to dry their clothes. Sleep steals over them, and when Eivor wakes again, her friend is gone - the stone beneath her as cold as the leaden lump in her chest. 

-

  
  


There is no word from Sigurd, and her dreams are empty and lonely. The field of red flowers eludes her, and he does not come - no matter how badly she longs for him to. She travels to Lunden, and with the aid of the reeves Erke and Stowe, she cuts the strings tying the ancient city to the Order one by one. She watches it burn at the hands of the Compass - before her axe separates his head from his body, as his separated Tryggr’s. She leaves her new friends to piece their city back together, and her heart lifts with hope as she rides into Ravensthorpe once more. Surely by now there is word from Sigurd. She arrives to find her clan in mourning. Svend has died, and Tove is shrouded in a deep and all-encompassing sorrow. The clan’s mood is somber, and Randvi is not herself. Her friend has taken too many blows, too close together, and staggers beneath their weight - and Eivor’s presence is a painful reminder of them.

She has no choice but to continue in Sigurd’s name, forging alliances while she waits for him to send for her. She travels to Sciropescire, to aid in seeing Ceolbert named ealdorman. Until there is peace, it is shaky ground at best. The shire and King Rhodri have long been at war, and it is Ceolwulf’s hope that his son might establish a peace that will hold. It is good to see the young aetheling again, though Ivarr’s presence at his side troubles her. He bears a grudge towards Rhodri that rivals the one she once bore for Kjotve. The peace talk is shattered by Ivarr’s tempter, and before the day’s end, the waters of the river are deepened by the murk of spilled battle-dew; the bodies of Danes and Britons alike scattered along its shores. 

They are left with little choice. For peace, they must back the furious Rhodri into a corner. Over the following weeks, supply lines are cut and Wenlocan is sacked. Bishop Deorlaf is saddened by the necessity of it, but despite being a christian man he understands that in times of war, blood must be spilled for there to be peace. Their efforts pay off, for lady Angharad herself comes to speak of a lasting peace. King Rhodri has stayed behind at her behest, for there can be no good borne from Ivarr and Rhodri’s clashing. An accord is met, and Eivor leaves to find Ceolbert and share the good news. He will be ealdorman at last, and she is pleased by it. He will be a just and fair leader, for despite Ivarr’s presence at his side, his spirit has not suffered any ill effects. He is the same thoughtful and bright man he has always been.

  
  


-

  
  


Ivarr is gazing up at the hanging King Rhodri with an expression that is half madness and half pleasure. She has stood by and watched the unfortunate king’s end, and though she feels no sympathy for such a man, she is disgusted by Ivarr’s taste for cruelty. There has been no true meaning to this blood eagle for Ivarr. It was an act of vengeance, nothing more, after many seasons of hate seething and boiling within his gut. She once respected Ivarr, even considered him a friend. She compared herself to him, and questioned herself in his shadow. Now she only wishes to be done with him, and free of this wretched place.

“Now all of Mercia can see him,” Ivarr declares, spreading his arms to the sky. 

“I’ve seen enough.” She turns away, sickened in her spirit. Odin may take him, for though the god has voiced his approval of the deeds done this day, she has no wish to see Ivarr again. Not after this. 

“We are not finished, Eivor.” Ivarr’s voice has taken a softer edge, now, the wild note of madness gone from it. “This saga we have written together… It needs an ending. Here, and now.”

“You have your ending, Ivarr. It is hanging behind you, and the blood is not yet dry upon the rocks. I am done with this place.”

Ivar shakes his head, like a dog meaning to dislodge a biting flea. “A fight to the death, you and me! If I win, I am the greatest vikingr that has ever lived! If I lose, what a tale you have to tell!”

“It is not a tale I _wish_ to tell,” she says with finality. “You are battle-drunk, Ivarr. Goodbye.” She turns her back to him once more. She makes it three steps before the next words come.

“Poor Ceolbert. He barely said a word.”

She pauses, curling her fists in fury. Ivarr is not yet done with pulling her into his madness. _“When?”_ She asks, though in her heart the answer is already known.

“I pushed that dragon dagger into his heart,” Ivarr’s words are just above a whisper, but she hears them, and it is as though the dagger were being pushed into her own heart. 

_“No,”_ she manages to say, turning back to him. Her heart is beating at her chest and in her ears, battle-fury already pounding within her.

“Just a soft little squeal, and then… Nothing.”

“You sick fucking bacraut!” She roars, and the birds resting atop the high stone walls around them scatter like leaves in an ill wind. 

Ivarr is smiling, and his eyes gleam, dangerous and wild. He has pulled her in, his victory reflected in the rage and hurt that burn within her and are written on her face. “The things a man must do! The trials one must face, the friends one must betray, to achieve one’s destiny… and become King Killer forever more!”

“Traitor!” She spits to the side. “Ceolbert was--”

“Like a _son_ to me,” he sneers, close enough she can feel his hot breath on her face and see the shine of his teeth as he snarls his challenge. “Yes, yes! So fight me, Wolf-Kissed! To a glorious death!”

Her answer is a song, sung by her axe as she swings it. She means to bury it in his neck, but Ivarr is nimble - twisting away and delivering a kick to her side before dancing clear of her next swing. He has seen far more battle than she, and he fights as a man who has known little else but blood and death for many winters. But she is fueled by her own fury, and she strikes blow after blow as she presses him further back into the ruin. 

“Have you no menace?” He taunts, blocking a blow and rolling free of her. “When I buried my axe in Gwriad, you winced. You cower in the face of sudden drama.”

She does not speak, does not answer him. All she can see is the red haze of bloodlust, and in her ears there is nothing but the sound of Ceolbert’s last breaths. He reached out to Ivarr in the end, bloody fingers stroking the cheek marked by Rhodri’s blade. Forgiving, and kind - even in the face of his own death. It is a thought that lends speed to her axe, for there is nothing she wants more than to see Ivarr meet his end. He would see the world burn in order to slake his bloodlust, and she would see him burn for his shameful and cowardly act.

She strikes again and again, and though she is not without her own marks from the twisted ergi as their battle wears on, her blade finds flesh and bone more than once. He is flagging, a trail of blood marking the stone and earth at his feet. He is strong, but she is stronger. She has the favor of the gods, and has not lived so many winters as he.

Ivarr dances back several paces, holding a hand to still her. “Hold a moment, Eivor,” he says - and she can see he is tiring beneath the thundering cloud of her fury. “Let me ask you something.”

She pauses, shield held high and her axe wet with Ivarr’s blood. “Speak, then. Or I take your tongue.”

“Will you see your father in Valhalla, Wolf-Kissed? Or is the coward in Helheim, weeping tears of ice?”

He does not wait for an answer. One of his axes hurtles through the air, and she only just spins clear of it. Ivarr launches himself at her, and together they tumble over the edge and onto the hard stone of a lower level. She gasps for air when they land, pinned to the ground beneath Ivarr. His second axe drives at her head, and she twists to the side - the sound of steel against stone ringing in her ears. She heaves with her legs, dislodging him and sending him rolling to the side. His axe skitters over the weathered stones, beyond his reach. He rises to his feet once more, but he is too slow. Varin’s axe buries itself in his belly, and Ivar stumbles - his weight pulling him free of her strike. He falls onto his back, breath whistling from his belabored lungs as his bloodied hands grasp at his belly; twists of shining entrails snaking about his fumbling hands.

“My long road ends,” he chokes, as Eivor crouches beside him. “The Valkyries approach. My axe, Eivor… Hand me my weapon.”

She lifts the axe from where it lies, and her heart is heavy. She is seeing Ceolbert’s face again, hearing his last words before the soft light in his eyes fades away. She will never see him again, for there is no place in Valhalla for a gentle christian soul. She places the axe on Ivarr’s chest. She does not do it for him. She does not do it for herself. She wants nothing more than to deny this coward, this ergi, this traitorous _pigshit,_ the thing he wants most. She does it for _Ceolbert._ Because in the end, Ceolbert would want her to forgive Ivarr. He would not want Ivarr’s treachery to twist her more than it already has. She allows Ivarr his axe, for the sake of the boy who once said, _you are not like so many of the others. There is a gentleness to you._

“This is more than you deserve,” she says, and there is sorrow in her heart. Sorrow so great she is not sure she will be able to stand beneath it. Now, as when she was a child, she does not allow herself to bend or break. She is a vikingr, and sorrow is only given life where it may strengthen her. When his breathing has stilled and his heart has beat it’s last, she lifts Ivarr from the ground. The wounds and aches of her body cry out, and silenced by her will. She will bear his body back down to the castle, and from there Ubba’s men may return him to his brother. 

  
  


-

The bark of the tree bites into her skin, and she ignores it. For hours she has lain upon this branch, carefully balanced, as Svaðilfari grazes below. The great oak’s branches are so large and thick she imagines they must surely rival those of the great Yggdrasil. Her hair has long since dried from her dip in the spring, hanging down and loose alongside the curling vines that have crept up the oak’s branches over the years. She feels like a witch-woman, half naked and free as she perches amongst the trees. Birds flit amongst the dappled sunlight, chirping and calling to each other. The charms and chimes of her witch’s hut.

She has been unable to bring herself to return to Ravensthorpe. Not yet. There is a great disquiet in her spirit. As always, when she is hurting, she seeks solace. This glade, with its burbling spring and moss-covered stones and ancient trees soothes her, calms her. Here, she is able to center herself again. Svaðilfari is pleased with the respite. The past months has been a long and bloody campaign, and though he is a war horse and she a drengr, there is still need for quiet moments such as these.

Perhaps it is the sound of the running water below, or the way the grasses and flowers rustle in the gentle breeze. There is a familiarity to this place, and she is reminded of another day. A day many winters ago, when the earth shifted beneath her feet and everything changed.

_She is drenched with blood, though it is not her own. It has been a successful raid, and the carts they burned and the supplies they carried off and the men who fell before them will halt Kjotve’s pushing against their borders for some time to come. He must be furious, and there is fierce delight in that thought as she lowers herself into the water and scrubs the hearts-blood of his craven warriors from herself. Though it is summer, the water is still cool. Here, this high in the mountains, true warmth is an illusion. A memory of something that cannot be felt, not truly. Even before a fire, it molds itself to the side cast in darkness. She is seventeen winters, and she is strong. Eivor of the wooden heart, with an arm made of stone and ice chips for eyes. Eivor, who may yet turn to ice herself, she thinks, as she slips back into the soft leather leggings she has placed upon a rock. Rivulets of water trace their way down her back and pool at the base of her spine, and she eagerly tugs on her tunic to protect her against the biting wind._

_Sigurd stops her on her return to the camp, for he has come up the mountain path to see what mischief his favorite drengr has gotten up to._

_“Tell me, girl,” he says as she approaches. “Has a little drengr come this way? She is perhaps this high,” and he holds his hand up to his ribs in illustration. “And thinks herself a valkyrie, the way she swings her blades.”_

_“I have seen nothing up here but overgrown king’s sons with eyes so close together they cannot find their own way,” she answers. “But if I see her, I’ll be sure to warn her off, for a crow comes to peck at her like an old hen.”_

_“The spring you found must be bracing indeed,” he grins. “For you look as though you might soon sprout icicles from the end of your beaky nose. A shame, I rather liked you with the war paint of death on your skin. It made you almost approachable.”_

_“It can be replaced with ease,” she growls, pushing at his chest. “And will be, if you do not clear my path, Sigurd of the too-narrow eyes.”_

_“My eyes see perfectly well,” he winks._

_And see her, he does - for there is suddenly a serious and thoughtful note in his voice as he looks upon her, and a warmth in his gaze as he observes her sodden braids and clinging tunic and flushed face. It is a subtle shift, but it is enough - for the drumbeat of her heart slows, and the rustling grass at their feet stills, and the birds circling and swooping above them freeze like the points of stars. He sees her, sees all of her, as Heimdall sees all from where he stands upon the bifrost… and she sees him, and the sweet stirrings of a young girl walking in the snow-steps of her idol deepen and expand into something more._

_He follows her back down the path, tugging at her braids and teasing her as he often does - but he senses the change as surely as she does, and her heart taps nervously at her ears. A tentative knock, on a door she dares not open._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one wasn't Sigurd heavy, but the next chapters all are. :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oxenefordscire spoilers ahead. Gods, I hope I spelled that right.  
> \-------------------------------

It does not take her long to find the fishing shack where Sigurd and Basim fled to. It rests at the edge of the water, furthest from the rest of Buckingham. It is where she would go, should soldiers be looking for her. She pauses at the door, then allows it to swing open. She spies Sigurd, seated in a corner. Their eyes lock, but before she can step closer or speak, someone grabs her from behind and a sharp blade is pressed to her throat. Sigurd stands, so suddenly and violently the stool he is resting on tumbles onto its side.

“Wait! Stop!” Sigurd yells. The blade at her throat retracts, and the hold on her loosens.

_ “Ahlan wa sahlan, _ Eivor,” Basim’s smooth voice says next to her ear. She shakes herself free of his lingering grip, and Sigurd rushes to greet her.

“We could have cut you to bloody gibbets, Eivor!” He exclaims. He stops short of her, and for the first time in many winters, he does not touch her. No clap on the shoulder, no hand on her arm or a reassuring smile. He is much-changed since last she saw him. She can see it as well as feel it. He is tense, and he is far away. Sharp blue eyes that focus, but do not see her standing before him.

“You could have tried,” she teases. It is an attempt to reach him, in this place where she cannot go. “Why so unnerved, Sigurd? It’s not like you.”

“Half the soldiers of the shire are looking for us,” he answers drily. “You must have noticed.”

She steps away from Basim, still unsettled from the closeness of his blade so recently to her throat. She keeps her tone light. “Is that why you haven’t come home? You’re playing hide-and-fetch with Mercian soldiers?”

“Your brother is a busy man, Eivor,” Basim says, and his tone is that of one chastising a child. “Weighed down by pressing duties.”

“It is good to see you again, Basim. Even if you haven’t kept my brother trained on the task at hand.”

“It’s not my place to lead your brother about like a bridled mare,” he retorts placidly. 

“Now there’s an idea.” She forces a smile, though she feels little warmth. Sigurd stands with his back to them, and the line of his shoulders is that of a man at war. Whether with himself, or the soldiers outside - she cannot say. “Sigurd… We should be forging alliances. Send this man back to his warren before he leads you astray.”

He turns, a glimmer of her Sigurd returning. “Eivor, gods above, I am glad you have joined us. We have made strides towards an alliance, in fact. A local thegn called Geadric has pledged an oath to me.”

“I’ve heard of him,” she nods. “The alewife also mentioned a Lady Eadwyn, who commands the soldiers. Why not ally with her?”

“Lady Eadwyn’s husband was the shire’s ealdorman, until Guthrum’s army ended his life,” he explains. “Now she has taken up her husband’s fight, with the promise of aid from King Aelfred of Wessex.”

“She has vowed revenge on the Danes who have stolen her husband and her livelihood,” Basim adds.

“What do we know of this King Aelfred?” She asks, arms folded.

“He is a fearsome king,” Sigurd admits. “If Eadwyn can win his full support, this shire is lost to Wessex.”

“So to fight her, you’ve pledged your sword to a minor thegn who likely commands a gang of farmers and fishermen,” she summarizes. 

“Have faith, Eivor! A few hundred Saxons armed with hayforks and billhooks can be terrifying.”

“Gods,” she sighs, shaking her head.

“All men and women, noble or peasant, have within them the seeds of something greater.” Basim does not meet her eyes. His words are for Sigurd’s benefit, not hers. 

“This is true,” Sigurd nods. “Sometimes greater than the average mind can fathom.”

“Well, Eadwyn has Geadric in shackles now. All your plotting has turned to ash.” 

“Not if we act soon.” He steps close to her. Close enough, that the toes of their boots touch and she must lift her chin to meet his gaze. “She dragged her prisoners to the longhouse. With you here, we can mount a surprise strike.”

He is close enough she can feel the heat of him, rolling off like rays of sun on fresh pitch. If she took one step closer, the warmth would seep into her bones and mend the ache in her heart. She has grieved for Ceolbert, and the one man she would tell of her ordeal has been gone, and distant. She has reached for him, and found nothing there. Only troubling dreams, of a raven and an eagle plummeting to a blackened earth. There is so much she would tell him, but the words die on her lips at the look in his eyes and the memory of Basim’s presence. She closes herself to him, drawing heavy curtains about herself that would blot out the very sun.

“If Geadric is our best chance for an alliance, let’s see it done.” She turns to Sigurd’s shadow. “Basim, I would have a moment with my brother. Alone.”

Basim’s dark eyes flick to Sigurd, who gives the barest of nods. “I will be just outside. I can be unseen if I wish to be.”

She waits until the door has latched behind him to speak again. “Sigurd, what are you doing with him? He bends your ear like the wind bends grass. Has he promised you something of little reward?”

_ “Eivor, _ have you lost hope in my warcraft?” His voice softens at last, without Basim’s presence to temper his mood. “I heed Basim’s wisdom, but he follows my lead. Always.”

“He has the look of one who trusts none but himself.”

“Basim is secretive by nature, but he is wise and forthright.” He takes her hand in his two larger ones, clasps it tightly. “And he has opened my eyes to a magnificent truth. He has promised me a reward so unusual, so incredible, it will shatter your mind to shards.”

There is a strange light in his eyes; one that makes her wish to pull away. But she is road-weary and heavy of heart, and despite his words, she does not. She has ached for him since their last dream, and she will not squander what little time she has with him now. These words he speaks are Basim’s, she knows. Not Sigurd’s. Sigurd, who has always been level of mind and sturdy of heart. She raises her free hand, places it against his cheek tentatively. Even now, with the flames between them forced to dwindle, the contact is sweeter than a birdsong. She wills him to see her, truly see her, and speaks as plainly as she can.

“Sigurd, our bond has the iron heft of a war axe. Do not let Basim and his prophecies of good fortune sway you from our simple goal.”

“Never,” he promises. “Our goal is fixed. We shall soon be the lords of Mercia, then all of England. But Basim has a deep insight. He’s read wisdom in the lines of my face and heard the litany of my forefathers, and… Well, there will be time enough for my saga later.”

“I can read the lines of your face as well,” she says. “And I need not come from a mysterious land or speak foreign words to do so.”

“And what do you see there, little drengr?” The words flood her with warmth and comfort. It has been too long since she heard the nickname only Sigurd may utter.

“I see many troubling things,” she answers, smoothing his cheek with her thumb. “A disquiet in your spirit. There is a Sigurd in your eyes that I have never seen, and it causes me great unease. But I also see many things that bring me joy. I see the Sigurd of our childhood, brave and strong and sweet. I see the Sigurd that boy grew into, wise and unbending and powerful. I see  _ my _ Sigurd, who has always lent me strength where I had none. I can only pray to the gods that the Sigurd I know in my heart is the one who will win out in this battle you fight alone.”

“Eivor,” he whispers, and his hands all but crush hers between them. “There is no battle I fight alone. You are always with me.”

“To the end,” she agrees, allowing herself to truly smile.

“Then trust in me, and my decisions. As your jarl, if not as your Sigurd.”

And so, she bends again - setting aside the dark thoughts that writhe like so many snakes within her belly. She follows Sigurd and Basim along the outskirts of Buckingham, hooded to avoid the sharp eyes of sentries. The longhouse sits atop the hill overlooking the village, and it takes both her and Sigurd’s strength to force the door open.

The man who can only be the good thegn Geadric is on his knees, and looks up when they burst in.

“Sigurd!” He cries upon seeing them, “Kill this sweaty fishwife!”

Sigurd and Eivor both heft their axes, and Lady Eadywn steps forward. She is tall, with the hardened look of a woman who was once beautiful before grief and rage stole it from her. She holds up a hand, a commanding gesture from a woman who is used to her orders being obeyed.

“Stay your blades! This traitor, Geadric, will face trial. As will all the treasonous thegns of this shire.”

“You’re the traitor, Eadwyn!” Geadric protests. “Calling on Aelfred of Wessex, begging for his army!”

“Clap your mead hole, Geadric. Lapdog of the Danes,” Eadwyn snarls. 

“You’ll sell us out to Wessex! And that poxy-assed bastard Aelfred! We won’t ‘ave it!” 

Eivor decides in this moment she likes Geadric. He has a surprisingly weighty pair of stones hidden in those Saxon trousers. Kneeling at sword tip, and still cursing like a drengr. Perhaps Sigurd’s choice was not so off-course.

“Eadwyn, you are nothing but a churlish widow now. What power you had lies rotting in your husband’s grave,” she says.

Eadwyn’s lip curls back in anger and disgust. “You heathenish, fork-tongued  _ Dane. _ Foul-smelling heap, I shit on you all!”

Sigurd steps forward, lowering the hood from about his face. “Lady, choose your next words with care. For you see before you the future master of all England. Sigurd, of the hungry Raven Clan. Lay down your arms, free my friend here, and kiss my lordly feet. You will not get a second chance.”

“Sigurd,” she hisses through clenched teeth, “Are you cracked?”  _ What grand schemes has Basim planted between his ears?  _ She wonders.  _ He sounds as mad as Ivarr. _

Eadwyn snorts. “And you can kiss my rosy red arse, whey-face!” She turns, striding past her men. “I’ve done with this offal. I leave them to you! Flay them alive and tan their flesh for saddles.”

Eadwyn’s men are no match for two Danes such as they, and the wicked blade of Basim. The fighting is short lived, but Eadwyn has fled. There will be no catching her now, however fleet their horses. She attends to Geadric, raising him to his feet again and severing his bonds. He rubs at his wrists gratefully, where the rope has chafed at them.

“I was desperate to fight!” The thegn grumbles. “You should have freed me!”

“Be at ease,” Eivor tells him. “There will be time enough for more killing.”

“Geadric, this stone-armed vikingr is Eivor,” Sigurd says by way of introduction. Geadric dips his head, a wide grin spreading across his face.

She turns her attention back to Sigurd, his words not so quickly forgotten. “That was your plan, Sigurd? To charm the lady with your vague hope of kingship?”

“Prophecy, Eivor. Not hope.”

She feels as though she is on the field of battle, facing a man with a great spear in one hand and a fistful of flowers in the other. She is not sure which he means to throw, and she is imbalanced by it. She can only blame herself for Sigurd’s strange state of being. She should have insisted she be at his side, rather than wandering far and wide in his name. She has left him with a stranger, and the man beside her now is not the man she left in Repton.

There is little time to hesitate. Geadric informs them Eadwyn has taken most of the shire’s thegns captive, and means to hold a trial and immediate execution. If they are to succeed here, the thegns must be rescued or it will be a short battle.

“And what of the holy woman, Fulke?” Basim asks, abrupt with his words. “You promised us a meeting with her.”

“I did, aye,” Geadric nods. “But it is a fair mystery why you’d want to talk with--”

“Where is she?” Basim interrupts, and his tone leaves little room for idle words. 

_ He wants to find this woman, above all costs - and no doubt she is tied in some way to Sigurd’s sudden madness,  _ she thinks.

“Thegn Holt will know. She lives on his lands. But he will be dead with the rest if you don’t stop the trial.”

They ride out towards the Leah Villa garrison with haste. She cannot help but wonder as the wind whips at her braids under Sigurd’s punishing pace if they would bother with helping the thegns, should the path to Fulke lead elsewhere. Whatever their reasons for seeking her, it is a desire that supersedes all else.

  
  
  


-

She is torn between giving Geadric and his fyrd her aid, or pursuing Basim and Sigurd as they search for the holy woman known as Fulke. She chooses Geadric, and it is a decision not easily made. With every step she makes in this life, she wonders if it is the one that will lead to her betrayal of him. She wishes she could silence Valka’s words, but they are carved upon her heart with the edge of a stone knife - jagged and cruel, each pulsing beat sending aching reminders through her.

_ You will betray Sigurd. _

Has she betrayed him, by choosing an alliance over his mad chase across Oxenefordscire? Or has she betrayed him by leaving him with Basim, to sink further into whatever tales of glory the man has been telling him? 

For two days, she hunts down Eadwyn’s patrols and sets their supplies to light. She harries their heels like a hungry wolf, and it is not until the fyrd is safe and the sky is dark with the ashes of Eadwyn’s last footholds that she turns Svaðilfari in the direction of Sigurd and Basim.

She dreams, and it is the same dream as before. She is a raven, with wings as black as the shadow of a sun devoured. Her wings stretch out at her sides, beating against the winds, sure and powerful. She dips and soars, glorying in the freedom of the skies. A great eagle joins her, with feathers of gleaming russet and gold. The eagle is twice her size, with piercing blue eyes that see all. Together, they skim Ymir’s skullcap, and the world stretches out beneath them small and insignificant. 

Clouds darken their journey, and lightning slashes the sky. The great red eagle plummets, pulling his wings in and diving with breathtaking speed. He dives and she follows, her slender body with its hollow bones falling like a stone behind him. If she does not stop him, if she cannot reach him, the great eagle will be dashed on the rocks that rise up to meet them. She knows these stones, for she has looked upon them many times over her life in Norway. She sees more, as the eagle continues his wild descent and she pursues him. The land is dead beneath them. Trees, skeletal and burned, reach their pleading hands towards the sky. There is ash and bone, and little else. The world they knew is gone, only charred and desiccated remains standing where there was once life.

She stretches out her talons, so close she can almost reach the eagle’s back, and for a moment there are feathers between her grasping toes. She curls her talons, seeking purchase on the shining feathers, and thinks she has won. But the eagle eludes her, and she is left gripping only loosened feathers. She is still plummeting, but she is no longer a raven. She is herself, tumbling from the sky in her human form - and each rotation shows her a glimpse of a tall man with hair like fading embers dashed upon the rocks, his right arm twisted beneath him and his sky-bright eyes unseeing. It is her scream that wakes her, tearing her from her dream and sending her bolt upright in the dim light of morning.

Svaðilfari is watching her with impassive dark eyes, and when he sees she has regained herself, he returns to cropping at the grass. She pulls her knees to her chest, taking slow and steady breaths as she does when meditating before battle. She does not need to go to Valka in order to understand this dream. It’s meaning is clear. She will fail Sigurd, and that failure will cost her everything.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, and hugs, for the dark day ahead. :B

His words still sear her; a firebrand scorching her repeatedly, until the air is ripe with the stink of her burning flesh.

_ You. Always second guessing. Always questioning my wishes. You slowed us down and I missed my chance.  _

His finger, pointing, accusing, a sword that jabs at her, cuts her, splits her in two. Not the man she thought she knew. Not the man she loves. A man she has never seen before, and who’s fury sickens her spirit.

She has never felt shame for swinging her axe. She has never felt anything but pride in her stone arm and her unquenchable battle lust.  _ My greatest weapon,  _ he has always called her, affection bright in his eyes. Not until now. Not until she saw the anger and something like hate burning within Sigurd’s eyes after her refusal to break her oath to Geadric.

_ Eivor, you muck-minded fool.  _

It is the first time he has ever said such a thing to her, without the warmth of jest to soften the blow. It is the first time he has been unkind to her, and it is an axe blade in her ribs - stealing her breath, sapping her strength. She would lie on the ground and curl about it, were she anything less than she is. He is the only one who has ever made her feel this way, and there is little comfort in the slaying of Eadwyn’s men. Disquiet writhes within her like  Jörmungandr’ s coils twist beneath the sea.

“Geadric’s pathetic army will never breach the walls,” the man wearing Sigurd’s skin snarls at her. “We could have first taken the stone, then laid siege. That was always our plan, Eivor. I had no intention to betray Geadric.”

“It was your plan all along, and yet you saw fit to keep me guessing through your fits of madness.” Her own anger flares, with a heat to rival his own. 

“You are not always to be trusted,” he roars. “Your passions overcome you.  _ I _ know that. My father knew that.  _ Your _ father knew it.”

The words rain like repeated blows, stinging and shameful. She has been struck by axe, by sword, by spear. She has felt her bones break beneath powerful blows. She has felt the tips of arrows bury in her flesh, and limped the long journey home with blood filling her boot and staining her teeth. She has been torn open and mended again and again throughout her life as a drengr, and nothing...  _ Nothing _ has ever hurt like this. A hundred arrows in her back would be less of a betrayal than this. She takes a step back from Sigurd, her fists curling so tightly the leather of her bracers creaks.  _ I will never forgive him for these words, _ she thinks.  _ Never, in all my remaining days, will I forgive him this. _

“Sit here and bemoan your fate,  _ brother.”  _ The word is a spear, hurled at him. It is a separation. A severing of their love-bond. She wants him to ache, as she does now. “I have a promise to keep, and I mean to.”

“You think too much of yourself, Eivor. You do not have the wisdom of Odin. Come, Basim.” He turns from her, his eyes as hard and cold as frozen diamonds set in a face of stone.

Basim follows, but not without casting a wary eye at her before returning to his place at Sigurd’s heels. She watches them go, until the battered rock walls of the sprawling ruin about her obscure them from view.  _ Damn you, Sigurd, and damn you, Basim. I will wage this war alone if I must. _

“This quarrel with your brother is something to behold,” Fulke says at her back. “Has it always been so heated?”

Eivor does not turn her eyes from where they yet linger, on the place Sigurd last stood. “All my life, we moved as one.” Her voice is a ghost of its former self, and she cannot help it. The words will not come as anything but a whisper. “As family, as kin. I have always known his mind, and he knew mine… Until this day.”

“Time makes idiots of us all,” Fulke says. 

_ Yes,  _ she answers silently.  _ It has made one of me. _

-

Sigurd and Basim are already bending Geadric’s ear when she returns from her mission to sabotage the fort’s defenses. Their words carry, finding her before she steps into view.

“You’re a good man, Sigurd,” Geadric is saying. “And I’m thankful for all you’ve done. But without Eivor--”

The group falls silent upon sighting her, and she does not miss the way Sigurd’s brow deepens in anger. The wounds from their recent clashing remain fresh in his mind, as they do in hers. He approaches her, and she backs away from him until there is a wall at her back and a furious vikingr at her front. She is walled in.

“Is it done?” He asks, a pillar of rock with a mouth that speaks.

“It is.” A roiling sea, with little care for stone’s strength.

His eyes flash. “And have you laid poles of hazel and composed your poems for the coming victory?”

“I am here to speak with Geadric.”

He bows and gestures, cruel and mocking. “Then go. Your master awaits.”

“Still dreaming of your precious stone,  _ brother?”  _

He steps close, and she feels no warmth. He is as flat and empty and cold as a frozen wall of stone and ice. “It is not dreams that led me here, Eivor. I’ve had visions. Prophecies from the gods.”

“Visions?” She asks.  _ I, too, have had visions… and they have not led me to madness, as they have you.  _

“I’ll sacrifice to Tyr this day,” he declares. “The lord of justice. The harbinger of flawless victory.”

He shoves past her, then - His hand on her shoulder spinning her away. Casting her aside, and stalking into the trees like a wounded bear gone to lick its wounds. Basim follows, as he always does - follows Sigurd as she cannot.

“Sigurd, what prophecies?” She cries to his retreating form, but it is as useless as casting a stone into a fathomless void; the great chasm that has split the earth between them, hurling them into separate and dark lands.

The battle for Cyne Belle castle is without joy. Her axe does not sing. It has grown as silent as she, though her powerful sweeps send many Saxons to their grave. She is stiff and wooden. She makes no offerings to Odin, asks for no blessings from the god who would see her so gutted. Sigurd’s words and his growing madness have stolen her battle-lust. This is not a war being fought for the good of the clan any longer. It is a massacre in the name of his desire for this mysterious sacred stone. 

Even on the battlefield, he is separate from her. Where once they would fight shoulder to shoulder or back to back, she fights alone, now. She can hear the sweep and slash of his greatsword, but it is Basim who guards his back. Basim, who now moves in tandem with Sigurd. She is cold and empty, a jar that has been dumped out onto the snow by uncaring hands and left to bind to the frost. Geadric beckons to her, calling for her aid - and she turns her blade to guard him as he makes for the portcullis.

_ Then go. Your master awaits. _

She is distracted, her hugr twisted and her thoughts scattered. The boot to her back sends her stumbling forward, and she allows her body to roll with the momentum. Hard stone strikes her head, and though she is quick to her feet she is not quick enough. The spear scores her side, the Saxon wielding it crying out to his christian god as the sharp point scores her and life-blood pours forth. He jabs again, and she twists - slower this time, her body discordant and sluggish, as though she is mead-drunk. There is a hoarse yell, and a flash of steel. Light gleams off of hair spun from the sun’s fire, and Sigurd is there - his greatsword buried deeply in the Saxon’s neck. Their eyes meet, and before he pulls his blade free she sees something there. A piece of him that is not yet lost; a regret and a sorrow he cannot voice for the madness and obsession tearing him apart. 

“Sigurd,” she means to say - but her lips only form the words without sound. She clutches her side, and though the injury pains her it will not kill her. Not like this divide between them might.

He is gone, then - returned to the heat of battle and once more pulled from her reaching hands. She resumes the fight, and with slow but grim progress they push their way into the inner courtyard. Eadwyn is waiting for them, and they circle her like a pack of wolves might. Sigurd, Basim, Eivor, and Geadric. Eadwyn stands tall and proud despite her victory crumbling like loose soil between her fingers. She wields her pike with the deftness of a woman who has fought many battles, but even a woman such as she must fall. Geadric leaves the woman’s fate to her, and she in turn leaves Eadwyn in his care. She has no yearning for Eadwyn’s death, hate-filled though the woman might be. She understands the woman’s pain, and her thirst for vengeance. These are things Eivor has also felt, and indulged.

Eadwyn is led away in chains, and it is only then that Eivor realizes Sigurd and his shadow are gone - as is Fulke.  _ No doubt they have gone to hunt that cursed stone.  _ Geadric turns a worried eye on her.

“Best be quick with your business here,” he warns. “My scouts have seen King Aelfred himself, marchin’ on this castle with a whole army behind him.”

She searches the castle, and finds them in a sunlit room high in the keep. The three of them stand in a circle around a large weathered stone, and none look up when she approaches.

“You see?” Fulke asks Sigurd, “The markings of the Ancient Ones. The Isu, the gods begat of gods.” Her eyes are bright with fervor and curiosity as she watches Sigurd’s face.

Sigurd runs his fingers over the surface of the strange slab, marked with engravings in a foreign language. “I have… seen this somewhere,” he murmurs. “I know these words. I…”

And then she is no longer standing on stone, but in the black waters that always hearken Odin’s presence in her mind.

_ “One who stands at a threshold should take great care to look around… For who knows what foes await in the halls beyond.” _

She turns to meet the all-father, and sees he stands in a great stone archway. At its peak, the same stone tablet - unchanged and undamaged - is set amongst the stones. It is familiar to her, for she has seen it in a vision that has forever scored her heart.

“I have passed through this doorway once before. With Sigurd. In a dream.”

_ “Not once,”  _ Odin tells her. _ “But a thousand times.” _

“A thousand?” She whispers, staring up at the stone. It does not speak to her. Not as it speaks to Sigurd. 

Odin fades from her thoughts, and her eyesight clears. A fog, rolling to shore before being pushed back once more by currents of wind. 

“What does it say, Sigurd? Does it speak to you?” Basim is pressing.

“Yes, but… the words are fogged. Shadowed. And yet… I feel their meaning.” He speaks as though in a dream, dazed and distant. “And the ash tree! I see the great Tree of Life, her boughs reaching skyward… Opening the way. It is just as you promised, Basim. All you foretold was true.”

He turns to Eivor, and she sees that until this moment he has forgotten her in this place. There is no castle about them, no dead and dying men in the courtyard below. He has seen only what he wanted to, and now that it is done, he sees her. His hands grip her arms, squeezing her so tightly it hurts - and the fire that burns in his eyes is not for her. It is a fever born of something else.

“Eivor,” he says, and it is almost a caress. “I am more than I appear to be. So much more.”

Her hands rest on his waist. She does not remember placing them there. Her fingers curl tightly, taking in fistfuls of his quilted hauberk - as though it will stop him from moving, from leaving. A raven, her talons grasping at sungold feathers.

“This is wicked magic, Sigurd. Dark seidr.” She hates the weakness in her voice. Weakness, as a child’s nine winters gone. It is a part of her she loathes, but cannot help in this moment. “Please… Do not listen. Leave this place. Come with me. We will return home, to Ravensthorpe. And it will be as it once was. You and I, building our kingdom.”

She does not care that Basim and Fulke can hear her words. They are but two crows, picking at Sigurd’s still-warm corpse. He is little more to them than a means to their mad ends. To her, he is so much more. The sun that warms her face. The light that guides her home. The strength in her limbs and the beat of her heart. Her words are meant only for him.  _ Please, Freyja,  _ she begs in prayer,  _ goddess of love. Bring him back to me. Let him see what is in my heart, and know that all I have ever done has been for him.  _

_ “No,” _ Sigurd twists from her grasp, leaving her with nothing but bruised flesh where he held her. Anger twists his face once more. The eagle, plummeting to earth. “This is real. This is  _ everything.” _

Geadric interrupts them, flinging the door open and stumbling in, breathless. “Aelfred’s come! King Aelfred of Wessex! Marching up the rise with a mess of soldiers!”

“Have we time to escape?” Eivor asks.

Geadric shakes his head. “The men are spent. We’ve not a chance in blazing hell.”

“A parley, then.” Sigurd’s voice breaks over them, strength and authority returned to it. “We must call a parley. I will speak… and the king of Wessex will listen.”

She is the only one who appears to be troubled by the boldness in his words. Fulke is impassive, and Basim... looks as though he is a cat who has only just caught a bird.

-

“Offer an exchange, lord,” Basim whispers in Sigurd’s ear. She cannot hear his next words, for they drop in pitch even as Basim’s eyes meet hers. Sigurd nods before raising his eyes to King Aelfred once more.

“Let’s end this here, my lord,” Sigurd offers. “Let’s exchange men. My best warrior for yours, to prove peace. After which, you leave Mercia, and we fall back north of river Ouse.”

She stares from Sigurd to Basim, and the unease that has been building in her gut twists and turns until she cannot breathe for it.  _ My greatest weapon,  _ he has always called her.  _ My stone-arm.  _ He is offering her up to these Saxons, these worshippers of a dead god, and she cannot hear for the ringing in her ears.

“These terms are fair,” Aelfred agrees. “Wolfrich! My war thane, you will go with Geadric, brother.” A great beast of a man, clad in chainmail and shining armor, steps forward. “Name your man,” Aelfred offers a thin smile.

She has been betrayed, and she does not know if she has the strength to do this last thing for Sigurd. Sigurd, mad of eye and heart, has cast her aside like a pebble wedged in his horse’s hoof. He turns his head to look at her, and she cannot read what is written in his face - for it is a language spoken by a man she does not know. Is he asking her consent? Is he giving her a silent order, expecting her to obey? Her chest is frozen, unable to rise or greet new air. He turns back to Aelfred.

“Sigurd Jarl, I offer myself.” Basim steps forward. 

“Thank you, Basim,” Sigurd accepts.

Shame floods her like battle-heat. She thought he meant _her._ She thought herself betrayed, and in that moment she wished for death. Prayed to the gods that Aelfred’s men strike her down, rather than live with the pain of such knowing. Has he not always called her his greatest weapon, with love and affection in his eyes at each delivery of the title? But she was wrong, for he meant Basim. Even in his madness, he never intended to betray her. Despite his dreams of prophecy and gods, her Sigurd remains. It brings no comfort now, for she has dishonored him with her thoughts and betrayed him in her heart.

“King Aelfred! Wait!” Rushed footsteps approach, and Fulke enters the tent. 

“Paladin Fulke,” Aelfred says with surprise. “Are you with this company?”

“I was, my lord.” She rises from her deep bow at his feet. “To recover from Eadwyn what was mine by right.” She moves to the king’s side, gesturing towards Sigurd. “Sigurd is the only man you need. He’s worth more than twenty other men. He is the son of a king.”

“Traitorous snake,” Sigurd seethes.

“And his heresies are  _ profound, _ my lord,” she continues. “He claims to be a living god.”

“I’ll gut you, troll woman!” Eivor roars, already moving, fingers curling about the haft of her axe. She cannot let this happen, cannot let this be. Sigurd flings out an arm, wrapping it around her protectively and ceasing her storm.

“No, Eivor,” he warns her, and does not release her until the sudden fire within her dwindles and dies along with her hope. He turns his gaze back to the slender man on his christian throne. “I’ll give myself to you, King Aelfred, for it is not my fate to die by your hand.”

“Sigurd,  _ no.” _ It is a plea, wrenched from aching lungs. 

He raises a hand, a request for one more moment, and turns to her. He cups her face in his hands, as he has done a hundred times both in life and in dreams. The madness in his eyes has gone, as is the man who delivered so many cruel blows to her heart in these last days. He is the Sigurd from memory, and his eyes are gentle and full.

“Be still, little drengr. You must let me go.”

“I  _ can’t,”  _ and the two words are greater than themselves. He is asking her to trust that she will see him again, and she cannot - for his dreams and visions are clouded by Basim’s whispers. There is no way to be sure they are from the gods, and that his fate is true. 

“It is the only way you will leave this place, Eivor. I must do this. We will see each other again soon, and there will be great rejoicing and a mighty feast held in our honor. This much, I swear to you.”

She overlaps his hands with hers, pressing him to her hard enough that the memory of his touch will remain, burned into her skin. “I will find you, Sigurd. Wherever they take you, I will follow. And I will make them bleed until the rivers run red with their blood and the smoke from their fields darkens the sun.” 

He kisses her, before all assembled and without care at who might know what lies between them. He kisses her long and deep, until there is only the heat of his mouth and the warmth of his huge hands eclipsing her face.  _ This is a farewell,  _ she thinks.  _ For despite his words, he is not truly certain he will return to me.  _ He is Freyr, and she is Gerd, and he walks to his doom as red flowers burn and Fenrir eats the sun.

Basim vows to follow, and send word when he has found the place Fulke means to keep Sigurd. There is nothing more to do. There is nothing they  _ can _ do. The land is dark with the helmeted heads and shining spear points of Aelfred’s forces. She has no choice but to return to Ravensthorpe empty-handed and tell her clan what has happened.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canterbury spoilers ahead <3   
> \--------------------------

She has been wrong about Basim. Too long she has treated him with distrust, and now - faced with a man as dedicated to saving Sigurd as she is - she can admit she has misjudged him. Whatever strange magics he believes in, whatever key to greatness he might think Sigurd holds, his unrest is as great as hers. She feels kinship with him, this strange man from across the sea. He is a hunter and a warrior, though she serves her clan’s glory and he serves a cause greater than himself. Together they watch the crackling fire and the sparks that rise to the moonless sky, seeking to join their brethren amongst the stars. They have nearly drained the stores of ale left behind by the Saxon squadron, and with each draught the tension remaining between them has melted like winter’s snow beneath springtime sun.

“You’ve traveled so far to carry out your duty,” she says. “Is this the life of a Hidden One? Always on the move?”

He shakes his head, and the firelight reflected in his dark eyes makes them gleam like embers. “Mine is not the usual path. The creed does travel. Our ideals are universal, we believe that.”

“So there’s nowhere you call home?” She knows so little of this man. Until these past few weeks, he has been little more than an obstruction between she and Sigurd.

“No place I call home, no.”

“Weird.” She smiles despite herself.

Basim shrugs, spreads his hands. “For me, home is family. But I have no family.”

“No one? Not even Hytham?” 

“Parents, brothers, all dead.” 

He is alone. Alone as she once was. She can see it, now. The fathomless sorrow within him, as endless and far-reaching as the sea that surrounds Midgard. It is one she has known within herself. They are the same, and yet they are as different as the sun and moon. They have known equal loss, and used it to shape themselves into something that might survive it.

“I lost my parents when I was nine winters along. Without Sigurd, I would’ve…” The words stick to her ribs, like feathers to pitch, and she cannot finish. “I would’ve...”

“There is always one unbreakable bond,” he tells her, and his eyes shine like obsidian in the firelight.

“Yes,” she agrees, her knuckles white from clenching tightly about the jug of ale.

“Children. They bewilder you.” She has shared something, and he has met her offering with one of her own. “They can cause you so much worry, fill you with joy. Even stop your heart. And if you’re lucky... they replace you.” He stokes the fire, watches the new sparks lift and flit to the heavens. “I was not so lucky. I had a son. I miss him terribly. Even now.”

She extends her hand, rests it upon his forearm. “I’m sorry, Basim.”

“He was taken from me. By someone I trusted. A friend, a mentor. A man who I would trust with anything.” He goes quiet for a long moment, and she does not expect him to speak again. He is lost in his thoughts, lost in memory, and he sees only his past in the dancing flames. “But a man you trust with anything… can take _everything.”_

He meets her eyes, and she wonders at the meaning behind his words. Is it a warning? He is the only one who knows of her feelings for Sigurd, and of Sigurd’s for her. The only one who has seen them for what they are. 

“He took all I had.” He jabs at the burning wood, and more sparks burst forth, drifting up and swirling, caught by the wind.  _ “All  _ I had.”

“And did you get your vengeance, in the end?” She asks. It took her seventeen winters, but she had hers. Kjotve’s death did not bring her joy, but it brought her some measure of peace. He took everything from her, and so she took everything from him.

“No,” Basim admits, his gaze darkening. “But someday, I will.”

“Your family is gone, and this land does not wish to be home to either of us - but from this day forth, I consider you a brother. It is not much, only a token. But it is a gift I hope you will accept.”

“A title that is high praise, coming from the Wolf-Kissed one.” Basim smiles, and some of the sorrow in his eyes ebbs. “And I shall call you  _ ukhti.  _ Sister.” 

-

Fulke’s sanctum is another dead end, and Sigurd is gone once more - slipping through her fingers like water through a fisherman's net. Taken from her. She is dimly aware of Svaðilfari surging beneath her. Of trees and rolling hills and bleating sheep blurring and ebbing behind her. Svaðilfari runs, until she sees the lather upon his neck and hears his labored breathing, and takes pity on him. The sun is high and bright in the sky, and sweat beads her brow. She does not feel it. She is numb and empty, as though a great fist has reached down into her and taken everything. Truly, one has - for Sigurd  _ is  _ everything. Without him, she is a bag of meat and bone. Tears hang on her lashes. She can feel the weight of them, see through the blur of them, but they do not fall. Weakness, she struggles to keep at bay.

She is grateful to Svaðilfari, for if not for his surefootedness and his ability to see them home, she is not sure she would have made her way back to Ravensthorpe. He is her guide on land, as Synin is her guide in the air. It is dark when she rides through the rain-drenched settlement, and she does not stop or speak with anyone. She is beyond words, beyond emotions that can be measured by word or song. She has betrayed Sigurd. Her actions have led them to this precipice, and now she fears he is beyond saving. It is a thing she cannot accept, and she knows she will gladly go to Valhalla before she lets Fulke be the last face Sigurd sees. She will save him, even if he never forgives her. Even if her Sigurd never returns to her, and only a broken man remains. This, she vows to herself.

She is weak and useless, just as she was when she was nine winters grown and could not heft an axe with one hand. Every moment that Sigurd suffers is another weight added to her shoulders. Dag awaits her as she rides into Ravensthorpe, a mad dog nipping at her heels as always. She nearly strikes him, for her anger and self loathing is so great it nearly overtakes her.

_ You are not always to be trusted. Your passions overcome you. I know that. My father knew that. Your father knew it. _

She stays her hands, the ugly words in her head a painful rebuke. They have spun about her hugr like tendrils of poison since spoken, sickening her with their fever. It is not over with Dag. This much, she knows. But he retreats, eyes burning with something she does not want to acknowledge. Not now, not in this moment.

Randvi closes her eyes at the news of Fulke’s escape and Sigurd’s prolonged capture, her face growing pale in the dim light of the longhouse. 

_ “Gods,  _ Eivor. Are you alright?”

She hesitates, unsure of how much to tell Randvi. The ramblings of gods and demons and elves scattered amongst Fulke’s possessions have done little to shine a light on the holy woman’s madness, or the nature of Sigurd’s being gods-touched.

“We need an army. Call on our allies. Remind them of our oaths to me. We must act before… Before…” Her courage to speak the words fails her.

“Before what?” 

She cannot say the words. Her tongue is a rock embedded in mud. She pulls the dagger from the tabletop, holds it in her hand. Staring and unseeing.

“Before what, Eivor?” A gentle hand rests on her back, the touch light and careful. A bird, ready to take flight should its perch prove perilous.

“She  _ tortured _ him, Randvi.” She cannot look away from the knife. Cannot meet Randvi’s eyes. “Did unspeakable things. Severed his arm and left it as a… As a gift. I fear she means to kill him. Slowly.”

The hand on her back moves in slow circles. “What do you need?”

“I need… to sleep. I have not rested in days. Tomorrow, we will speak of plans… and pray to the gods that Basim’s feet are swift as Freyr’s great chariot.”

She sleeps, but her dreams are no less troubling. 

She stands in a field of ruin. The red flowers are gone. There is only ash at her feet; desiccated stems and leaves crumbling to dust beneath the punishing gusts of wind. The birds have long fled, their songs replaced by the howling of wolves in the blackened woods at the edges of the clearing. She is barefoot, and beneath the soles of her feet the ashes are cold and damp, a fire that has burned out days ago and been further quenched by Thor’s fury. She crouches, takes a handful of charred earth in her hand and inspects it. Blackened sticks and buds and little else. She understands, now. This is not her dreamscape, but his - a shattered mirror to hers. A scream - a sound fraught with pure agony - tears through the frigid air, and her blood freezes and crystallizes in her veins. She begins to run, sodden ashes clinging to her bared feet.

_ “Sigurd,” _ she cries, but the wind tears it from her that it might not reach his ears. She continues to run, but the wind pushes back - forcing her to raise her arms and shield her eyes against swirling ash and earth. Another scream cracks like Thor’s thunder. The sound of a man dying.  _ “Sigurd,” _ she screams again, but it is a cry that is lost. He cannot hear her, cannot see her, and though she struggles with all her might, her feet make no purchase against the gale that beats and battens against her.

_ “Eivor!” _

Her eyes fly open, and she is once again lying in her bed. She rubs at her eyes, blinking and turning her head towards the door, in the direction of the booming voice. A storm is raging beyond the longhouse doors. She can hear the crack of thunder, see the flash of lightning through half-shuttered windows. Just as in her dream. It is a night of unrest and ill tidings.

_ “Eivor! Come out and face me!” _

She is awake, and she knows who is calling.  _ Dag.  _ He is furious with her for again failing to retrieve Sigurd, and she has been expecting this. She has known and slain enough men to recognize battle-thirst in one’s eyes, and Dag wants nothing more than to wet his axe blade with her blood. She stands, returning her father's axe to her belt. She wants to be wrong, prays to the gods she is wrong, but Dag has long been approaching a place where reason cannot reach him. They were once friends, if not reluctant ones. There seems to be no end to her hand being forced to swing an axe, and she finds herself battle-weary for the first time since she took up a weapon so many winters ago.

Rain pelts at her face and cold wind whips away what little sleep-warmth she had left in her body as she steps out of the longhouse. Dag stands waiting, the eye of a storm itself.

“This ends now, Eivor!” He cries. His voice has carried throughout Ravensthorpe, and now the clan gathers. They have come to see what stirs on this dark night, rubbing sleep from their eyes or pulling furs tighter about their shoulders as they blink sleepily. He wants an audience, and they have come - summoned by the bellowing of a mad bull.

“Dag,” she says, as the wind seeks to snatch her words as they have in her dream. “Turn around and walk away.”

“Your habits are not my own, Eivor,” he sneers. “I do not flee responsibility for the sake of my glory. I stand firm with my people.” He begins to pace, gesturing, urging the gathered crowd to lean into his words. “For many months, I have stood at your side, keeping faith in Sigurd’s judgement. Because I believed in him and his vision.  _ Do as Eivor commands,  _ he told me. And I have. Against my better judgement, I did as you have asked of me. And where has that left us? Without a Jarl, without a purpose, watching you chase glory around this land like a spooked hare.”

She can hear murmuring beneath the moaning wind, the people she has known as family for months - some for many winters - weighing Dag’s words. Weighing her.

“You could have come to me in confidence, Dag, and I’d have listened. But that chance is gone.”

“I have no need of it.” He shakes his head, and rainwater drips from his ears and chin. “My mind is fixed.” He turns back to those gathered. “Hear me, all! I challenge Eivor for leadership of this clan, until Sigurd is safe home.”

“Walk away, Dag!” This time, she shouts the word. This is not a fight she wants, and it is not one he will win.

“No!” Dag roars back. “We fight to the death!”

Their axes clash, and she knows there can be no turning back. He fights with the reckless abandon of a man who no longer sees her as a friend, but as an enemy blocking the way to his ends. Three times, she tries to reach him with words. She tells him she does not want this, begs him with a voice of iron to walk away. He will not hear her, and he only fights harder for it. She blocks and withdraws, defending herself from his onslaught until her arms begin to tire from the effort. She cannot do this forever. Blood will be spilt on this muddied earth, and she cannot let it be hers.  _ Freyja grant me strength for this thing I must do,  _ she pleads. And then her axe is whistling and singing through the air, tearing through flesh and bone as Dag stumbles before her fury.

  
  


-

Sleep does not come to her. Her heart is torn to shreds; carrion left behind for ravenous wolves. She cannot stitch it together, cannot mend what has been so thoroughly broken. She walks the world numb and drunk on her rage and hatred for the madwoman Fulke. She mourns Dag, and relives the events of two nights past with great regret. There was no changing his mind, and it is a cold comfort. If she is able to bring Sigurd home, she must bear further burden with the delivery of sad news. She must tell him she has slain one of his oldest friends, while he suffered and bled at Fulke’s hands.  _ If. If she is able.  _ And so, she does not sleep, and hardly eats. She waits for her allies to respond to her summons and curses the weakness she finds in her moments of solitude. The others did not see the way her hands shook at the sight of Sigurd's severed arm, and it is a blessing by the gods that the anguished howl she unleashed in the damp and the dark of that hellish pit of despair was heard only by Basim. Basim, who placed a hand on her shoulder and vowed to find Sigurd at all costs. Basim, who is sly and secretive and would never share her shame. Who she has come to lean on in Sigurd’s stead, and love as a brother.

The longhouse is silent this night, and she wanders the long feast hall like a draugr within its crypt. Her eyes are unseeing, her ears hear nothing. She does not know why, but she finds herself standing in Sigurd's room.  _ Sigurd and Randvi's room,  _ she reminds herself. She is a trespasser here. Her legs are wont to crumple beneath her, and so she sits. And then she lies down, her body fitting into the dip where Sigurd once laid on many a warm night. Though it has been long since he was present here, she closes her eyes. Her fingers curl about fabric and she pulls the heavy blanket close. She can  _ smell _ him, though it has been countless nights since he was last here. Perhaps it is only in her mind. Perhaps in this dreamlike state, all she can do is imagine what she longs for most - but she smells the salt of the sea, and sun-warmed skin. She smells damp leather and the sweetness of mead. She smells  _ him,  _ the man she has loved and forced herself away from for so long. And now… it may be too late. It is too much, this rictus of memory, and her body tightens and tremors and clenches in protest. She cannot allow herself to cry. She must be stronger than this.

"You love him."

Randvi's voice startles her, and her eyes fly open. "Randvi. I thought I was alone. I... will leave."

She rises, forcing herself to stand on legs that are still shaky and threaten to betray her. Randvi does not move from her place in the doorway.

"You love him," she repeats. "Don't you, Eivor?" There is no anger, no malice in her words. They are gentle, and the compassion in them threatens an undoing.

"Of course I love him. He is my... brother, my family. My Jarl." The words are raw and painful, pulled from a throat made hoarse, as though it has shouted many battle cries. Perhaps it has, though only in dreams.

"It is more than that." Randvi leaves her position in the doorway and comes to her, bidding her sit once more. Eivor does not resist, allowing Randvi's firm grip to push her back down. She crouches before Eivor, then, eyes searching - and Eivor allows her gaze to be captured and pinioned. "You do," she breathes. Then she smiles, and it is a serene and resigned thing - the northern lights, their colors muted.

"I have not dishonored myself, or you. All these long winters, I have... stayed myself, though my heart demanded otherwise." The words, a confession as ugly as her heart, pour forth. "I could not tell you, for it was not something I could admit to myself, either."

_ "Eivor," _ Randvi murmurs. "All this time, it was right before me... and I did not think, did not see. I must be as blind as Hod, to not see the pain in your heart. I was too lost in myself to notice.”

"You have had your own share of troubles, and this... is my burden to carry."

She studies Eivor's face. "Your words to me, on the tower. You said... Your heart was not open. That you could not return my feelings. You loved him even then, didn't you?"

"I have loved him for all my life, more than anything, and for half of it twice as much."

"Eivor, I am a fool to miss this. To not see it. Forgive me my blindness." 

“It is I who owe an apology. I have taken everything from you, though that was never my intent.” Words she has longed to speak, and has never had the courage to.

“You did not take anything, Eivor. Sigurd is a king’s son, and as stubborn as Thor himself. As stubborn as  _ you.”  _ She smiles at her own words. “You hardly stood a chance, faced with the passions of a man such as he. There would be no peace until you relented.”

“He is as stubborn and thick-headed as Thor himself,” she agrees, allowing a smile.

“Eivor, if you love him… Then you have only my blessing. I will not begrudge you this small happiness. Not after all you have survived. All you have done.”

Randvi's eyes shine in the candlelight, and though Eivor is not one to seek comfort in moments like this, she allows her friend to pull her into a tight embrace. They sit, for what seems many hours, sharing in their grief and their fear that the man whose fate they are bound to is beyond their reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to include that scene with Basim. That scene won me over to him entirely, and I just... fuckin loved the dude so much. Ugh, my heart.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, okay, first of all... I am so incredibly grateful for all the wonderful people reading this and commenting such sweet things. I'm in a continuous glass case of emotion between writing this fic and seeing all the kindness. THANK YOU. <3
> 
> Now, then. To the story. And I apologize for what I am doing to you. xD  
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------

_She will never forget her first true hunt. At eleven winters, her frame bespoke of a day when she would not be so small and slender. A promise from the gods, that her legs and arms would lengthen and it would not be so difficult to draw a full-sized bow or heft an axe like the one hanging upon Sigurd’s belt. She envied him, in those early years. For he was long of limb and already taller than his father before his seventeenth winter. More than envy, she worshipped him with an intensity otherwise reserved for the gods themselves. He was a loud and arrogant man, despite his still-tender years. When he spoke, his voice carried the authority of his father’s blood and a fearlessness entirely his own. She was too young to raid, too small to swing a proper weapon. And because he loved her as much as she loved him, he approached her one late winter’s night and gifted her a bow made of sleek yew. It was a bow made for a child, though she knew it’s size belied the strength in the taut bowstring._

_“We are to go hunting, you and I,” he tells her with sparkling eyes._

_“Styrbjorn will be angry with us, Sigurd,” she protests._

_“My father is asleep, his belly full of mead. We will slip out like the wind upon snow, and return before the sun wakes.”_

_She does not hesitate. As always, when Sigurd hatches a plan she is eagerly complicit. She slings her new quiver over her shoulder, hefts her bow, and nods resolutely. Sigurd grins at her, rumpling her wild and tangled hair with his gloved hand._

_"Not so quickly, little drengr. We must bundle you up, for the night is cold, however brightly your hugr-fire burns.”_

_When she is swaddled in leathers and furs to his satisfaction, they strike out across the frozen land. The moon is high above them, its soft white light gleaming off a blanket of frozen diamonds. The snow beneath their feet is a hard crust, and does not crunch beneath her light footsteps. Sigurd is not so lucky, for he is far taller and heavier than she, and his boots break through the crust and he must lift his legs high with each step. She giggles at the sight, for he looks like a cat who has stepped in water._

_He raises his hand to halt her at the edge of a stand of winter-bare trees, and lowers his face covering that she might hear his whispered words._

_"There will be deer here,” he promises. “For when snow covers the grass, it is the bark of trees and the winter berries they must eat. See the markings on the trees, here, and over there?”_

_She looks, and sees where the trees have been stripped of their bark, higher than even Sigurd’s head. She nods, unwilling to pull her own scarf low. It is cold enough to break bone, and Sigurd’s breath hangs frozen in the air as frost forms on his amber eyelashes._

_“We must be very quiet, for the deer will also be very quiet. They are watching and waiting for predators, and will be expecting us.”_

_“Sigurd,” she says, her voice muffled. “If we must be quiet, and the deer are also quiet… how will we find them? And how can we see, when the shadows of the trees hide the moon from us?”_

_“You must listen for the whispers,” he tells her, and his eyes are bright and luminous as the moon against his pale skin._

_“The deer... whisper?”_

_“Yes,” he answers, and he leans down so that their faces are close, as though to tell her a secret. “All things whisper, Eivor. The trees whisper, as the winds travel through their branches. The birds whisper, as their wings beat against the air. The bushes, heavy with winter berries, whisper as their leaves rustle and bow beneath the weight of snow. You and I whisper, for the breath in our lungs must come out and our hearts must beat so we might hear them. So, too, do the deer whisper. Their breath whispers through their little black noses, and their hooves whisper against snow - though they are far more graceful than you and I, with our thick legs and heavy furs. If you listen, and learn to quiet your own whispers - you will hear them.”_

_“How do I quiet my own whispers? I cannot stop my heart from beating.”_

_He smiles at her. “Think of something that calms you, little drengr. Think of something that brings you peace, and joy, and settles your spirit. Close your eyes, and picture it as though you were there now, rather than in this frozen place. Once you have it, imagine your heart slowing with your breathing. Let all else go, and listen to the whispers of the world around you.”_

_She closes her eyes, and the image that comes to mind is a simple one. It is a great rock; one that overlooks the sea. A craggy stone that extends over the water, reaching, like a great claw. It is a dizzying height, but she feels no fear perched atop it, feet dangling into the yawning depth below. Here, the wind whistles against her ears and lifts strands of her hair with it’s eddying currents. Not even the seabirds rise to this height, for the air is thin and cold - too cold for only feathers. Sigurd is beside her, and they do not speak. There is no need to. This place demands silence in its majesty, and so they offer it tribute with still hands and unmoving lips. She is content in this place, with Sigurd at her side._

_She pictures this, and imagines her heart slowing, until it is a low drumbeat that not even she can hear; a beat that resonates with the old magic of the earth. The heartbeat of stone, soft and thrumming, stretching out over eons. Her breath is less than a whisper. It is a slip of a thing that leaves her, seen but not heard, the expansion of her lungs effortless and silent. When she opens her eyes, she sees approval in his eyes. He is proud of her, as he always is, and her heart swells beneath her ribs until the drumbeat returns in earnest._

_“Unsling your bow, little drengr… For you are ready to catch a deer. Listen for the whispers, and trust yourself to strike when the moment is right.”_

She listens for the whispers, now. Fulke moves through the oppressive blackness like a shadow cast by night itself, and her first few strikes are vicious and leave Eivor reeling. Her arm aches from the power behind Fulke’s strikes, only just managing to parry or dodge. She is fighting like a child, blindfolded and foolish. She presses herself to the wall, struggling to see as she inches along in the dark. And then… it is as though Sigurd is with her, and his voice is once more speaking to her. _Let all else go, and listen to the whispers of the world around you._

She no longer sees the rock, when she reaches out to the quiet place in her mind’s eye. It is different now, for much has changed since she was a child and he was merely her idol. Now, the place that stills her whispers is a clearing scattered with flowers so red they might be drops of Ymir’s blood, and the sky is crimson and coral and gold. Sigurd is beside her, and her head rests on her shoulder, and there is nothing else. Nothing but time, stretching out before them and unending. 

Her spirit is quiet, and her own whispers still - and now she hears the world whispering to her. She hears the whisper of soft boot soles, of worn leather creasing as Fulke pivots and strikes - and this time, her axe lifts to meet Fulke’s blade. Fulke strikes again, and Eivor is already gone - moving like the wind about henge stones. 

“You have power, Eivor,” Fulke says - and her voice paints an image of her location amongst the stone walls, clear in Eivor’s mind. “Maybe more than you know.”

She does not answer, not with words - but her blade bites into the madwoman’s back, and then Fulke is gone - tumbling away into darkness once more. Eivor follows the whispers, and again they clash - Steel upon steel, ringing down the stony corridors - the taste of copper heavy on the air. She has hurt Fulke, hurt the madwoman badly enough that the whispers become loud cries in the dark as her feet stumble and her hands grasp at crumbling brick for purchase.

“You are more like Sigurd than you know,” Fulke’s voice taunts again from shadow. Her breathing is ragged, silent no more. She staggers into the light of the solitary brazier. The firelight dances over maddened eyes and the paladin’s pock-marked skin. “Do you not wonder, Eivor, at the things I have learned?”

“Every word you say is madness,” she answers, voice flat and empty.

“Sigurd is an Ancient One! An archon, Nephilim, Isu. Call him what you will. He is reborn!” Fulke gestures widely, frenzied by her own words.

“He is not yours, to pick at like a battle-crow. He is mine, and _you_ … are mind-sick.”

“He is everything we should hope to be!” She flings something to the ground. There is a burst of sulphurous smoke, and Eivor cleaves the air with her axe blade too late. Fulke is gone, and she can hear booted feet racing down a tunnel.

She runs, and as she pursues Fulke she bellows into the darkness beyond; “Fulke! You cannot run from me forever!

The tunnel leads to a ladder, up into the old cathedral again - and from there she follows the droplets of blood, as though she were indeed tracking a deer through snow. She finds herself standing amongst the weathered stones and cracked roods of a christian graveyard. Fulke stands still, hemmed in and trapped by Eivor’s allies. They surround her, stone-faced, sword and axe ready. They are waiting for Eivor, for this battle is hers alone. Fulke turns from them, facing her destiny - the drengr with battle-fury in her veins and death in her eyes.

“You are too late, Eivor,” the Paladin cries. “I have opened your brother’s mind to the truth. That is my victory.”

“Your victory will be forgotten,” she snarls back, showing her teeth. A wolf, circling a bleeding deer. “And long after your bones have crumbled and trees have taken root where your corpse once lay rotting, Sigurd will be at my side.”

She is done with idle words, and the madwoman’s words are an offense to the gods. She presses her attack, and Fulke meets it. It is different in the daylight. Here, she can see the way her enemy flags; see the drop in her arm and the shift of her weight. Blood stains her armor, smears the ground where her feet shuffle. She grants the paladin no mercy, no respite. Fulke is gasping for breath now, death’s final rattle carried in each exhausted heaving of her lungs.

“You are more...like your brother...Than I realized,” Fulke pants. Her next parry is too slow, too sluggish, and Eivor’s axe - singing with the momentum of weeks of rage and anguish behind it - buries itself clear to the haft in the vile woman’s neck. Fulke falls to her knees, eyes wide and staring, as her life-blood pulses out around the axe head.

Midgard is gone, and the murk and fog of Helheim again surrounds her. She is screaming, and does not recognize the howling as her own - it is the high and keening wail of a shade, a creature without substance or life. Beneath her, Fulke laughs. Laughs, as her face is beaten and bloodied by Eivor’s clenched fists. She strikes the madwoman again and again and again, and Fulke’s laughter only fuels her fury. A sudden force, like a great hand lifting her and pulling her, jerks her backwards and she tumbles through the black water.

_“Stop, Eivor,”_ Odin’s voice booms. _“You misunderstand.”_

She ignores him, shrugs the words away like a battle-wound in the frenzy of spear-din. She wants only to make Fulke hurt. Hurt for as long and as terribly as she made Sigurd hurt. She staggers to her feet, axe raised, and slogs towards Fulke again. Odin’s power brings her to a halt; invisible bonds pulling her back and away from Fulke.

_“I will eat your heart,”_ she screams.

Fulke only laughs, dancing away on feet made light again by death. “Animals, we are. Spit and vomit, shit and soil. But Sigurd is so much more. I gave him that understanding, that gift.” 

“You gave him _pain,”_ she roars, and in those words is all she has felt in the months dogging Fulke’s heels. All the nights she dreamt of his agony and felt it as tangibly as if it were her own. The fear that she would never see him again, and that her last memory of him would be one of poison.

“Yes! To awaken him!” Fulke answers. Behind her, an enormous figure looms - and Eivor sees that it is Sigurd, strapped to his chair of agony. He is larger than a frost giant, head bowed and bloodied. Fulke takes hold of a mechanism, twisting the wheel and winching Sigurd upright. He screams, and it is the same scream she has heard in her dreams of blackened earth.

“All that power,” Fulke breathes as she continues enacting her torment. “All that potential, locked away. A god trapped in a prison of bones! The pain was necessary to free him!”

Sigurd, great and terrible, eyes burning with flame, snaps the restraints that bind him. He stands, his one fist clenched. She can see the veins of his hand, as large as her own two legs, writhe and bulge beneath his skin.

“Behold his terrible beauty,” Fulke cries rapturously, arms extended skyward. “The beauty of the divine!”

Sigurd bends, and takes Fulke up in his enormous fist. Eivor can hear bone break and muscle pulp, a sound like heavy steps in a bog - mud and moss giving way beneath solid boots.

_“Hers was the great work, the highest achievement of humankind.”_ Odin whispers again in her ear, as he has done so often since she faced Kjotve. _“Now you, Eivor… You must carry it forward.”_

She does not take her eyes from Sigurd, who towers over her now, fist reaching down once more.

“Leave me, greybeard,” she says to the all-father. The mad one. Grimnir. Havi. The Terrible One. “I want no part in your schemes.”

The vision ends, and when her eyesight clears once more she is standing over Fulke’s corpse. She is barely recognizable, for just as she saw in her vision, her fists have struck true. Fulke’s face is an inhuman mass of shattered bone and bloodied meat.

-

Sigurd is a shadow of himself. Despite his condition, he shrugs off Basim’s helping hands and stumbles forward. He is bent over, hunched, head bowed. His fine trappings are gone. His linen tunic is bloodied and tattered, his right arm ending at the elbow and neatly bandaged. His hair has lost its touch of fire. It is dull and ashen, hanging in strings about his face. His eyes are sunken and shadowed, his cheeks hollow. He is diminished. Her great vikingr is a whisper, the barest memory, of his former self. She has never seen him anything but stalwart and upright, proud and tall - and to see him like this now scores her heart a thousand times over, adding to the many scars already placed upon it.

_“Sigurd?”_ She whispers, her voice cracking as she approaches carefully. Will he know her? Will he lay eyes on her and curse her name?

“Eivor,” he gasps. He meets her eyes, then lowers his own, bowing his head further. “I will.. I will fight… as a thresher through a field of wheat, Mad One.”

“What has she done to you?” It is not a true question, for she begs no answer.

“Eivor!” Bishop Deorlaf enters the cemetery at a run, stopping before her and gasping for air. “We delayed them as long as we could. Reinforcements from Wincestre have come. We cannot hold this place against them, not with our numbers.”

“Get Sigurd on the boat,” she orders, pulling her axe free once more. “I will buy you as much time as I can.”

-

Nine days pass. Nine days, in which she leaves Sigurd to his dark thoughts after their talk beside Dag’s grave. She spends time with Basim, hunting in the woods surrounding Ravensthorpe or fletching new arrows while he tells her tales of his homeland. She takes the children fishing, and shows them how to bait a hook and cast a line as Ceolbert once showed her. She lies atop the sunken tower once more, sun-warmed stone beneath her back, and casts her mind into Synin. She sees the land as her raven does, and in the journey she finds she has grown to love England. It is no less strange to her, this land of christians and new kings, but it has become a part of her now. It’s roots have spread like a great oak’s, surrounding her and binding her to the ancient earth.

She drinks Valka’s herbs, and delves once more into her visions of Asgard. She hopes to find something that can ease her sense of dread and loss, but there is little within the visions that helps. She sees the all-father for what he is - a man blinded by desperation and fear; and overtaken by these things, he betrays his people and many others. She is without awe for the god of gods. It has been stripped from her like flesh from bone in the beaks of crows, and when she wakes from her vision of ragnarok, she spills the remainder of Valka’s foul brew upon the earthen floor and leaves without another word. She will never stop fighting against her fate, and should that mean the halls of Valhalla be denied to her for her refusal to bend, then let it be so.

She watches Sigurd, in the quiet moments when he is lost in the mists of his own mind. He is a man changed, a man she does not know. He treats his people with cruelty and anger, as he has done to her. Fulke has twisted him and warped him into something else, and though she is the only one he has spoken to since his return, she is losing hope of reaching him. Nine days she leaves him, as it was nine days and nine nights that Odin hung upon Yggdrasil before his own return to life. Nine days, and no longer. She approaches him on the tenth morning, as the sun rises following the end of the ninth night. His head remains bowed when she darkens his doorway. He does not leave this room, does not speak, and even now he does not acknowledge her. She has given Randvi her own bed, for her friend cannot bear to be in the presence of one so cold and empty. Since then, Eivor has taken to sleeping amongst the other vikingr as she once did in her raiding days of old. There is a strange comfort found in sleeping among her brothers and sisters, and hearing their snoring again.

She sets the large wooden bowl of kettle-heated water down on a table, and places the cloth she holds beside it. Still, he does not look up. She asks no leave of him, only lowers herself to her knees before him and begins the task of unbuckling the chest straps of his mantle. Blue eyes lift to meet hers at last, and they are as frigid and impenetrable as the surface of a frozen lake. She does not let them give her pause, does not allow her hands to hesitate. She lifts the heavy fur from his shoulders and sets it aside. She takes his arm bands next, circlets of burnished gold clasped about his biceps. Gifts, from a father he has not seen in near two winters. Her hands are careful as she removes the right one, as delicate as she has been when moving a hummingbird’s nest to safety. He flinches, a reflex carved into him by endless hours of torment, but does not turn away. His eyes are fixed on her face, and she does not meet them again. If she does, her courage might fail her.

She removes his waist belts, placing them one by one on the bed beside his arm bands. Then she unlaces his quilted hauberk, nimble fingers pulling the thin leather cords free. He offers her no aid, but does not resist. Beneath the hauberk is a tunic of a deep robin’s egg blue. It has long been his favorite color; for since she told him it reminded her of the first break of dawn, he has made a point to wear it. It is stained now, sweaty and rumpled from an unwashed body. She removes it next, taking great care when she pulls it over his head.

She _does_ hesitate, then - busy hands stilling at the sight of what lies beneath. About his neck, resting against his broad chest on a knotted cord, is a time-worn and smooth bit of wood. It is the shard of shattered shield she once wore about her own neck for many winters, before gifting it to him. She dares to touch it, fingertips grazing the familiar ghostly wood, and as she does he sighs. It is a soft sound, a minor exhalation, but it is almost enough. It gives her hope that he is in there somewhere, for despite all he has been through - he has found a way to keep this piece of her close to his heart.

She does not gasp when she examines his body, for she expected what lay beneath his layers of clothing. Scars, more scars than she can count, mar his body. Burns and cuts, deep wounds opened and sewn neatly back up with great precision. Some are mostly healed, still pink in their newness. Others have only just closed, the damaged flesh knitted together and glaring in livid hues. Fulke used every instrument at her disposal, and the chaos that is now the surface of his skin makes her want to stumble and weep. But she does not bend, does not let him see that his pain is also hers. 

She pulls his boots from his feet, and his legs are leaden and heavy beneath her hands. She sets them aside, then rises. She unbinds his hair, and carefully washes it clean - using one hand to cup the water and pour it over him as the other holds the bowl beneath his bowed head. The slackness of him, the loss of his will to fight, sends tremors of hearts-weakness through her limbs. It takes two scrubbings for the soap to lather, and the water is murky when it is done. She uses the cloth to dry his long hair the best she can, before twisting and braiding the lengths of red and gold out of the way once more. She is not sure if she is imagining him leaning into her touch at times, and must blink away the mote in her eye at the thought of it.

“Stand, Sigurd.” Her voice does not shake, though it yearns to. He does not move at first, only remains still, staring at his bare feet. She repeats her command, with equal authority, and at last he stands. A son of kings, obeying her wishes meekly. He is still healing, still hurting, and the effort is slow and deliberate. She does not aid him, for she knows to do so might break the tenuous thread he clings to now.

He does not step out of his breeches when they fall to the floor. Patiently, she lifts first one foot and then the other, nudging them to the side with her foot. Her eyes fall on his right hip and to the tattoo of Fenrir there, in the hollow before softness turns to muscle. She would smile at the memory of her own ink, so perfectly mated to his - were the task at hand not so grim. She turns, and picks up the cloth again. She dips it into the still-warm water, wringing out the excess. Carefully, tenderly, she wills the hands that have only taken life to now return it. She works in slow circles, wiping away the sweat and grime he has been living in. She is delicate with his injuries, working around them as best she can. At times he flinches, though it seems to be from remembered pain and not in response to pain she is causing him. She continues, carefully attuned to his every twitch and spasm and wince, until he is clean once more. Then, just as gently as the undressing, she begins to dress him once more. A clean tunic, breeches, his belts and gold armbands - and a mantle made of thick, black fur.

“Do you remember this?” She asks quietly, fingers stroking the soft fur once she has settled it over his shoulders. “It is from the great wolf we once slew together, all those winters ago.”

A soft sound, in his throat. She continues, encouraged.

“I had Gunnar make it for you, some time ago. I thought… I thought we would be together again, much sooner than we were.”

“I was wrong.” She almost misses the words, so hoarse and soft they come. “When I… Said those cruel things to you, at the feast. I was wrong.”

“You were not yourself.” Her fingers remain in the black fur of the mantle, her palm resting on his chest.

“I am not myself now, either. Not the man you once knew. I am both more, far more, and… less.”

She shifts her hand, rests it gently at the center of his chest. “When I look at you, I see only my Sigurd. I know you, as I have always known you - though fate has tried to tear us apart. I know your heart. The drum of it beneath my hand, now, is that of the same heart that has always beat within your chest. You are changed, yes. We are both changed. But our hearts are the same.”

He does not answer, but his remaining hand comes up to cover her own. His fingers curl about hers, squeezing tightly, pressing her hand to his chest without concern for the scars beneath their touch. She has no need of words, for this… is enough. He is still in there, her Sigurd - and she will fight for him until he is truly returned to her.

  
  


_There is always one unbreakable bond,_ she thinks. _Thank you, Basim._


	17. Chapter 17

“Are you well enough to travel?” 

Sigurd looks up from the food he has been pushing around on his plate. They are alone, the feast hall empty. He does not eat with their clan, does not join in when they celebrate or drink. His spirit has not recovered, though the wounds upon his flesh have mended. He allows her presence, and shares more than a handful of scattered words with her - but he is much withdrawn.

“Do you mean to be done with me, then? Are you to leave me in the woods, to live among the wolves?” The words are light, as if in jest, but there is a note of true meaning to them.

“Perhaps, for you are as beastly and hairy as a wolf,” she returns. “But no. My purpose lies elsewhere. There is something I would show you, but it is several day’s riding from here.”

He considers this, then pushes aside his plate of uneaten roast chicken. “I will go,” he agrees. “For this place means to suffocate me, and I long to be free of it.”

“Then I will prepare for our journey,” she says, rising from the long table. She expected him to refuse, but he has been almost meek in their interactions. The fire has left him, and anger no longer kindles in his breast. This, more than any other things, worries her most.

He is waiting outside the longhouse, seated on a bench, when she brings the horses around. Svaðilfari dances in place and tosses his great head, eager to be off after a week of standing still in his paddock. Sigurd mounts ably enough, for despite his missing arm his body has not forgotten its strength. He has not asked where they are going, and she does not tell him. She would rather show him. Randvi watches from the longhouse door, raising her hand in farewell. She will watch over the Ravens in Eivor’s stead. Ravensthorpe dwindles at their backs, and the day is beautiful and clear.

She speaks, to fill the void between them and ease his spirit. She tells him of her journeys through England. Of Erke and Stowe, and the sweetness of their bond. She describes Oswald’s wedding, and his forgiveness of Rued. She tells him of Ceolbert, and of Ivarr’s treachery that brought him to his end. Sigurd listens, and though he is silent through much of it, at times he asks a question or offers small words of acknowledgement. She would continue to speak even if he kept silent, but is grateful for what little he offers. 

They camp among old ruins that first night, and as the flames diminish into glowing coals amongst the ash, they look up at the stars and point out constellations, just as they once did in Norway.  _ There, see Thiassi’s Eyes - twin points burning bright from the peak of Ymir’s skullcap. And here, Durathror, the greatest of deer - long legs stretching outward as he walks the darkened skies. _ The great world tree spans Midgard from end to end, and amongst its branches there are many things to be seen. She cannot remember the last time she looked up like this and greeted her old friends with new eyes. Even Sigurd seems comforted by them, forgetting his burdensome thoughts as he joins her in drawing invisible lines.

They sleep, and when the sun is drawn up from the hills once more and breaks over the treetops, she opens her eyes to find that in the night, their bodies have edged closer - an unconscious seeking of warmth and safety in each other. He is curled about her, his remaining arm wrapped about her waist. It reminds her of their long journey from Norway, and of his back against hers as the sea rocked them to sleep each night - Jormungandr’s restless coils shifting the waters beneath their longship. 

They cross the border into Wessex, and she can see tension return to the lines of his shoulders. They are on Aelfred’s lands now. Aelfred, who gave Sigurd over to the madwoman Fulke. It has not been long enough since he was last here, and his memories of Fulke and her torments are with him still. She has not brought him here to face those memories, and the shadow cast over his eyes wilts her heart. 

“Be at peace, Sigurd,” she tells him, reining Svaðilfari back to pace alongside his bay mare. “We are not here for Saxons or their blood.”

He casts a troubled eye to her, but only nods, silent and wary.

The field is as she remembered it - wide and empty, bordered by pastures dotted with fat and wooly sheep. The red flowers are still in bloom, as she hoped they would be… And the air is heady with their sweet and wild scent. Bees roam from flower to flower, legs laden with their gathered treasure. It is peaceful here, and there is no sound but the whispers of the earth. She came upon this place by accident, as she rode through the countryside on her task to bring Fulke’s supply lines to their knees. She pulled Svaðilfari to a skidding halt upon the discovery, and stared in wonder at it. It was almost exact to the field from her dreams, but tangible and unburned.

_ Have you never seen poppies before, ukhti?  _ Basim had asked her, confused by the wonderment in her eyes. She had no answer for him. She could only stare, until the urgency of what she had yet to do drew her away. She understands now why she was given this gift… and who gifted it. Freyja, who heard her prayer in the darkest of moments and answered it. 

_ Please, Freyja. Goddess of love. Bring him back to me. Let him see what is in my heart, and know that all I have ever done has been for him.  _

She dismounts, and stands waiting. Sigurd’s eyes roam over the sight before him, as stunned as she is, before he finally swings his leg over the saddle and sets foot on ground again. She extends her hand to him, and he hesitates before taking it. Together, they wade through the bobbing sea of velvet petals, red as heart’s blood, until they reach the center of it. She releases his hand and sits cross-legged upon the soft earth, grass and stems bending beneath her weight. When he only stares down at her, she beckons him, asking him to join her with open palms and beseeching fingers. He lowers himself unsteadily, and when he is settled, they are so close their knees touch. Here, seated amongst the proudly waving poppies on their high stems, there is nothing but the fire of crimson petals and the blue sky above them. Bees hum in their ears and embers of sun dapple their laps and idle hands. 

She looks into his eyes, and he looks back - and something tugs. A pull on a rope that spans a great divide. It is a frayed rope, once stronger than corded iron, but it is yet unbroken. She takes his hand in hers, and inch by inch the divide gives way, until the chasm may be bridged by the length of their arms once more. The clouds in his eyes clear, the dark centers - black islands in a sea of blue - expand as he looks at her, truly looks at her, for the first time since his return.

“Sigurd,” she breathes.

_ “Eivor,” _ he answers, and there is great tenderness in his voice as some of his old self returns.

“I have missed you.” She fears her heart might crack and break, like rock when the earth moves. She brings his hand to her lips, pressing them to the scarred knuckles stained by runic tattoos.

“How did you come upon this place?” He asks, though his eyes do not leave the shape of her mouth.

“It was gifted to me, by Freyja. I called to her and she answered.”

His eyes darken again at these words, though he does not pull away. “Eivor, I… have seen many things. My mind is a wellspring of prophecies. Visions that tell me who I truly am. I know much, see everything… Far clearer than ever before. For all that, I am grateful for my suffering.”

“Fulke was mad. She tortured you, twisted your mind with her dark seidr.”

_ “No,”  _ he whispers. Then, stronger, “No. Basim saw these things in me. Fulke, too. Despite her cruelty, she spoke the truth. I am more than the man I was. More than the hobbling stick that sits before you. You must look harder, Eivor.  _ Deeper. _ You must see for yourself what they found in me.”

She releases his hand and cradles his face with hers, thumbs smoothing the slopes of his cheekbones. “I see only you,” she answers. “Sigurd Styrbjornsson. My Jarl. My great vikingr. A man who picked me up when I was broken. Who put an axe in my hand and returned song to my heart.”

“This is the face of a god,” he whispers, almost pleading with her. 

“This…” and she leans forward, kissing first his forehead, then each of his cheeks. “Is the face of someone I love. Nothing more, and nothing less.”

“You--” He begins to say, then falters. A sea-storm churns in his eyes, and she can see him fighting it. A man with two natures. A man, split by first Basim and then Fulke. There is a divide within him, as surely as there was a divide between them. “Eivor, there is something you should know. Something I have seen. You--”

She stills his words with a finger to his lips. 

“No,” she tells him. “I do not wish to hear it. You and I… we belong to ourselves. You are still Sigurd, and I am still your Wolf-Kissed. The Nornir may weave their twisted tapestries as they will. I am done with heeding them, and my fate is my own.”

“You have changed much, little drengr,” he says, and the old name is as sweet as honey on his lips. “You are not the Eivor I left so many months past.”

“I am not,” she agrees. “But I am the same Eivor you once loved. And when you are ready, and you are yourself once more, I will be waiting. Nothing will stand in my way again. That is my oath to you.”

There is pressure on her chest, and she lowers her eyes to see his hand flat against it - his palm pressed just over the steady drumbeat beneath her ribs.

"You must be crafted by Jotun magic,” he says, “For no heart as great as yours might fit within a chest so small."

  
  


-

  
  


They leave Ravensthorpe more often after the field of flowers. Sometimes only for a day, leaving with the sun’s first rays and returning by torchlight. Other times they stay away for several days, sleeping amongst the trees and exploring the countryside. His wanderlust has returned, though she knows it is borne of disquiet in his spirit rather than a yearning to seek new lands and treasure. He is ill at ease amongst their clan, and she knows he feels diminished at the loss of his right arm.  _ What use is a vikingr without a sword arm?  _ He asks her, on one of their short journeys.  _ I am of no use to anyone now.  _

She takes him to a place where a great waterfall cascades down rock, and the earth is soft and springy with lush grass. There are none here to watch them but the birds flitting amongst the trees and deer foraging along the water’s edges. He raises an eyebrow at her when she offers him a heavy Dane axe.

“Take it,” she says. “And I will show you that you can still fight like the vikingr I know you to be.”

He shakes his head, the remembered heat of the son of a king licking like hearth-tongues in his eyes. “Why? So you might watch me stumble and falter like an old woman, bent by years?”

“Take up your axe, Sigurd Jarl,” she commands. She speaks as an equal, and not an obedient vassal of her jarl. 

He lets out an impatient breath, before bridging the distance between them. His hand closes about the solid haft, taking it from her with relative ease.

“Now fight me,” she grins.

“Eivor, I do not wish to hurt you.”

“Ah, so there is grit in your belly yet.” Still grinning, she tosses her own axe from hand to hand. “I was beginning to worry you’d grown soft, like the down upon a Saxon’s trembling lip.”

He bares his teeth, eyes gleaming. “Little drengr, I’ll cut off your braids and leave you looking like a freshly plucked hen.”

“You must catch them first, you great ox.” 

The first clash of steel sends the deer bounding off into the foliage, and the birds cease their singing. Soon there is nothing but the sound of ringing metal and heavy breathing. He is slower, with such a heavy weapon and only one hand - but his blows are powerful. Each parry leaves her clenching her teeth and bracing against the impact. She begins to push him, test him, as she feints and slashes. He grows used to the rhythm of swinging the great axe, learns to move in balance with it, and dances out of her reach with surprising grace for such a towering figure. He does not best her, not yet… but there will be more opportunities to practice. Strength is returning to him, as slow and sure as water seeping through stone. There is nothing she can do to change what has been done to his body, but she hopes she can lessen the pain in his hugr.

They rest after their sparring. She sits on the ground, her back against a tall red oak and her legs stretched out before her. He lays beside her, his head resting in her lap. They drink mead from a waterskin, passing it back and forth until their blood sings with its low and sweet honey-song. She runs idle fingers through his hair, smiling to herself as his eyes slowly close. It is as though this is the way it has always been, and the dark times have passed.

“You were easy on me,” he murmurs sleepily, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I am not the only one who has grown soft.”

_ “You _ soften me,” she admits. “Just as you once swore you would.”

“Water over stone,” he remembers.

“Water over stone,” she agrees. 

“Why are we here?” he asks.

“Because we are tired from a long day.”

He turns his head to look at her. “You speak like you fight, little drengr. Always ducking and dodging.”

“Then speak plainly, mighty Sigurd, that my ears might understand your prattle.”

He smiles at that, then turns somber once more. “You should hate me, Eivor, for the things I said to you. Not once, but many times. You have stayed true to our bond, and I…” he hesitates, then finishes. “And I broke it.”

“You were not yourself,” she says again.

“I was blinded by my desperation to be  _ more,”  _ he admits. “More than a king without a throne, living on a riverbank. I vowed… I would let none stand in my path. And always, I heard Valka’s words. Each time you questioned my decisions, they rang like a bell in my thoughts.  _ ‘Your destiny lies beyond these shores, and it is not the one you dream of. A day will come when your friends are your enemies, and your enemies are your friends’,”  _ he quotes. “The more you pushed back, the less you trusted Basim and warned me against his words in my ear, the more I convinced myself you meant to stand in my way. To stop me from reaching my destiny. I did not need Fulke to twist me, for I did much of that myself.”

“Fear of fate’s threads twists us all,” she answers. All this time, she has carried a similar burden of her own. One she has never dared share with him. Her determination to twist out of the Nornir’s grasp has caused her endless torment. They have both been fools, seeking to evade or interpret for themselves what has already been woven.

“Tell me a story,” he asks of her.

She considers his request, fingertips continuing to comb through his hair, and then she begins to sing. It is rough and wobbly at best, for she is better suited to battle than song - but as she forms the words they steady themselves.

_ Olav rode along the hills, _

_ He’s led astray _

_ He stills himself _

_ He comes across an elf-dwelling before him _

_ There a red flame burned _

_ Gentle was the breeze beneath the cliffs, _

_ Gentle was the breeze beneath the cliffs ahead _

Sigurd smiles with pleasure, eyes closing. “ Olav Liljekrans,” he murmurs. “My mother used to sing this to me. It is... one of my strongest memories of her.”

She continues the ragged melody as best she can, and in time he rests. She watches lashes kissed by gold flutter with the coming of dreams. In sleep, he is without shadow. His face is open, and there is peace to be found in it. Her fingers continue to comb through his hair long after he slips into the soothing waters of sleep. It should not be possible to love one as much as this, for it is both sweet as wild honey and as agonizing as a fire-heated blade in her belly. A kindness and a cruelty, in equal measure. She finishes the song, and when the last words leave her, she rests her own head against the great tree and sleeps.

_ Gentle was the breeze beneath the cliffs, _

_ Gentle was the breeze beneath the cliffs ahead _

-

Months pass. Months in which she continues to seek out alliances and grow their clan’s influence. Months that are bittersweet, as she draws Sigurd back to her with gentle but firm insistence. Each time she returns to Ravensthorpe, he meets her with a muted eagerness, and they ride off together. They spar in their secret clearing, until freckles scatter across his shoulders and the bridge of his nose, and life returns to his eyes. They go spearfishing, and though he has only one arm, he catches far more trout than she. They race their horses along dusty and footworn roads, and in this, she always wins - for Svaðilfari is without equal. They drink mead atop ancient ruins, watching sheep graze below until they are too drunk to stay upright. They fall asleep side by side, and always, when they wake she is curled up against him and his arm is around her. Their time among the woods and hills and valleys brings him some measure of peace, and she regrets each time she must leave him once more.

When he asks her to return with him to Norway, she does not question it. She speaks to Randvi, and together they see to the preparations at once. They pack food and drink, furs and warm blankets. She does not tell Randvi this, but she is not sure they will return. Each crate of stores nestled in the belly of the ship feels like stones being placed, building a great wall that she may not climb. It feels like a betrayal of her clan, her Ravens… but she made an oath, and she means to keep it. Her word is ironclad, and her heart is sure.

_ From here to Valhalla, I will always be at your side, Sigurd. Always.  _

Ranvdi, her nose for secrets as keen as ever, senses Eivor’s disquiet. At the docks, she pulls Eivor into a tight embrace and whispers in her ear,

“Please return, Eivor. We need you.”

“I will if I can, sweet snow fox,” she replies, before breaking the embrace and joining the others. Sigurd is silent, his mind fixed on the journey ahead. He does not raise his head to speak to Randvi, nor does he bid her farewell. He is already a thousand leagues from here, his eyes preoccupied on the horizon. Only Eivor looks back at the huddled buildings of Ravensthorpe as the swan-road bears them away.

Their journey is nearly twice the length as their last venture. They are a week at sea when great clouds roll in, hiding the stars from view. The sea roils beneath their longship, and waves crash over them in relentless fits of fury. The gods are angry with them, and Thor hammers upon his anvil with a fury unlike anything she has ever seen. For three days of their journey, it is all they can do to huddle for warmth and keep the longship from capsizing. At the end of the three days, they climb out from beneath their sailcloth coverings. They are sodden and cold, their lips cracked and bleeding and their skin crusted with salt. They stare out at the calmed seas and wonder if it was all a dream. They have been blown off course, and it is another two days spent at the task of correcting it.

She is cold; colder than she has ever felt, and whether it is dread of what lies ahead of them or from the cruel bite of the sea air, she cannot say. Perhaps she has grown too used to the warm shores of England. She pulls her furs tighter about her shoulders and fights her body’s desire to tremble, cursing the blustering wind. It is not until Sigurd pulls her to him and wraps his arm about her that warmth returns to her bones. They stand at the prow, his furs and cloak enveloping them both, and watch seabirds dive among the waves and foam. He rests his chin atop her head, and she curls her fists in the soft fabric of his tunic. It will not be long, now. One more day of sailing, and Alrekstad will be in sight. From there, she does not know. Sigurd speaks vague words of his great destiny, and offers little explanation to its nature. They have been far closer since that day amongst the poppies, though he is often distant - his eyes somewhere far off, even as she stands before him. Whatever awaits him in Norway, it will either finish his undoing or return him to her, whole in spirit if not in body.

On their last night at sea, nestled amongst the oars and sleeping vikingr and warm beneath a pile of furs, he cradles her to his chest and buries his face in her unraveling braids. They do not speak. They do not need to. There is no comfort in words that cannot be found in the heat of each other’s bodies. She waits for his breathing to slow, for the rise and fall of his chest to even and steady itself. Only then does she allow a tear to slip from her eye, and for her own chest to spasm with an ominous feeling to rival that of the days-long seastorm they sailed through. Birna, bright-eyed Birna, appears in her thoughts.

_ You have the eyes of one who has lost much,  _ Birna says again, and it is as though they are once more perched atop a fallen tree, sharing ale and trading stories of their lives.  _ And though the thing that has saved you has also sustained you, it is the very thing that may kill you.  _

\---------  
  


[The song Eivor sings](https://youtu.be/I0eWpkcBTT8)

(Though I imagine her voice is more like Scar Jo singing Falling Down, than something this high)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clears throat repeatedly*
> 
> mild salsa ahead. <.<

“This is Harald Fair-Hair’s kingdom, now,” Sigurd says, tightening his arm about her as they watch the craggy peaks surrounding Alrekstad grow closer. “Every peak and fjord. It pains me to say it. To think it, even.”

“And Styrbjorn his fool, poor man.” Ensconced in his embrace and pressed to him as she is, the bitter and biting wind can only make her eyes sting. 

He kisses the top of her head, voice softening. “It is a role he chose. He bent easily, and broke in half. Do not pity him. You know better than any other that to bend is to pledge yourself to the cold gates of Helheim.”

Her answer is only the squeeze from her hands on his forearm, crossed over her chest.

“For many moons I could not sleep, always thinking of his betrayal,” Sigurd continues. “The  _ horrors _ I wished upon him. He deserves nothing but shame now.”

“Put it out of your mind, Sigurd,” she says. “There is no need to hound the old man.”

“No, little drengr,” he shakes his head, and she knows his mind is fixed. “He must taste the same foulness I taste. He must know what glory he missed by staying here, the lapdog of a conqueror.”

They dock, and Randvi’s words guide them the rest of the way.  _ News of Styrbjorn is not good,  _ she told them once.  _ It is said he spends his days in the mead halls, and sleeps upon barren planks of wood.  _ There is only one mead hall in Alreksteak, and it smells of vikingr piss and the damp of sweat and dishonor. She knows the place, and that is where they turn their aims. Sigurd’s face is resolute, tight, and he moves like a serpent coiled and prepared to sink fang into flesh. She can understand how he feels, facing a father who betrayed him with cowardice - for though she was a child, the image of her father on bended knee cannot be cast from her mind.

Styrbjorn is asleep on a table when they find him, as mead-soaked as one dumped in the sea and mumbling to himself. 

“We should go,” she implores once more. “Look at him.”

Sigurd only moves past her, to stand over the hunched figure. “Father.”

Styrbjorn jerks in his sleep, then slowly raises his head. He blinks red-rimmed eyes and wipes at his filthy beard. It takes him a long moment, more than a few beats of the heart, to recognize the towering vikingr beside him.

_ “Sigurd?” _ With a shadow of the strength he once bore, Styrbjorn rises to his feet and expands his arms in greeting, seizing Sigurd by the shoulders. Sigurd bends away, like grass beneath a winter gale. “My son… Eivor… By Odin’s blessing, come and let me look at you both!”

He releases Sigurd and turns to her, arms outstretched again. She takes a step back, arms folded about herself.

“Stop,” Sigurd steps between them. “That is far enough.”

It is only then Styrbjorn sees Sigurd’s right arm, ending at the elbow. “Blood of Tyr, what happened there?” He asks, eyes wide. “A grievous wound you have! Are you well?”

“Far better than I look, I assure you,” he answers. His voice is hollow. Wind, whispering through reeds, and she knows there is no joy in this moment of vengeance. 

“This calls for a toast,” Styrbjorn crows, stumbling towards the table once more. “Your journey must have been long and cold. A drink, to warm your blood!”

“We are not here to drink or make merry.” The wind turns to ice, and the reeds freeze and break. “Only to look upon the wreckage of a once great man.”

“And then what?” Styrbjorn turns unsteadily from his task. “Make new war against King Harald? Stake a claim on his crown? Is that your wish? To sow more chaos here?”

“You are absurd, old man,” Sigurd scoffs. “What could possibly interest me in this frozen backwater?”

Styrbjorn lowers his eyes. “I’d heard rumors that England was infested with kings already. I thought maybe…” and the brittleness of hope cracks his voice. “Maybe you would return here, to…”

“I have cast aside all dreams of kingship, father,” Sigurd interrupts. “A much greater end lies in wait for me.”

Styrbjorn sighs, lifting his cup and drinking deeply once more.

“I have returned for one reason only,” Sigurd continues. “To say goodbye, and thank you… for your colossal failure.”

“Failure?” Styrbjorn turns, with new light - furious light - burning in his eyes. 

“As a father. As a king. As a man.” Sigurd hurls each of these like great spears, piercing his father’s flesh. “For without it, I would not have discovered my true self.”

“My  _ failure, _ as you call it… My oath to King Harald… was the only sensible path forward for a man in my position.” Styrbjorn raises himself to full height, facing his son, and though Sigurd is the taller, they are equally matched in this moment. 

“There was nothing sensible about your betrayal,” she says, stepping close to Sigurd’s side. Close enough their arms and knuckles brush.  _ I am here,  _ it is meant to say. “Sigurd should have been king. You robbed him of that.”  _ You robbed him of so much more than that,  _ she adds silently, for if not for Styrbjorn’s treachery, they would never have met the madwoman Fulke. It is something she will never forgive this man.

“Who did I betray?” Styrbjorn demands. “A son who was never home? A selfish boy with no sense of leadership? An arrogant drengr!”

“You lie!” Sigurd bellows. “I have led numberless men into battle! And countless ships on raids across all the known world!”

Styrbjorn laughs, a sound like ice cracking. “You talk of kingship as if it were a matter of counting the notches on your axe. But to lead means so much more. I passed my crown to Harald because he was a man who understood the challenge put before him… Unlike  _ you.”  _

“You pathetic worm!” Sigurd’s hand flashes out, seizing his father by the neck. Long fingers wrap and tighten. Styrbjorn does not resist, only stares into his song’s blazing eyes with a fire to match his own.

“Sigurd,” she says, and places one hand on the arm gripping Styrbjorn and the other on his back. “Let him go. He is beneath you.”

He looks over his shoulder at her, and the sight of her eases the anger in his eyes. He releases Styrbjorn, and the man stumbles back, hands pawing at his neck as air fills his lungs once more. Sigurd moves away from him, turning his back 

“Hearts change,” Stybjorn says to the back of his lost son. Sigurd does not turn.

_ “Not _ this one.” 

“And what of you, Eivor?” Styrbjorn asks, struggling for something to hold on to.

“You should have told us of your plan to bend the knee to Harald,” she answers, and she grants him no warmth nor fair wind on this frozen sea he has cast himself into.

“And spared me the shame of seeing my father debase himself like a gutted pig,” Sigurd snarls, turning once more.

Styrbjorn bows his head, then, the slope of defeat in his shoulders and the lowering of his eyes. “You… Are right. I owed you the truth, and for that I am sorry.” His chin lifts again, and he meets his son’s eyes once more. “But I will not apologize for what I did.”

“Then I have nothing left to say to you,” Sigurd growls. He storms towards the door without another word. 

“My son.  _ Please.” _ They are the final plea of a man who is equally broken. A man rife with regret, but unsure of how to repair what has been damaged. Sigurd pauses in the doorway, but only for a single breath.

“You have spoken your words, and Sigurd has heard them,” she tells Styrbjorn. Sigurd’s wide shoulders fill the doorway, and then he is gone - the amber light of sunset filtering through once more.

Styrbjorn watches him go, then turns to her. “What happened to my son? What turmoil did he see that took his arm and darkened his mood?”

“He saw his father for what he truly was,” she answers, and there is no love in her heart. It is a rocky and barren battlefield laid with only betrayal and ash. “A coward who faced his enemies with more honesty than he did his family.”

She shoulders her way past him, and his next words call to her once more at the threshold, beseeching.

“I was a  _ father _ to you, Eivor!”

She does not turn, nor does she falter. “I  _ have _ no father.”

She rejoins Sigurd outside the mead hall. He is leaning against a rock wall, eyes as dark and full of storm as the looming clouds now hanging over Alrekstad. He sees her, and something crumples within him. A great horse, back broken beneath too much weight. He sucks in a breath, and she pulls him to her without another word. He presses his forehead to hers and she rests her hands on his waist. They stand like this for a long time, uncaring about the passersby who might be staring at the spectacle of two vikingr embracing thus.

“What is next for us?” She asks, when his breath has slowed and the tightness in him has softened beneath her hands.

“We sail to further shores,” he answers. “To my true purpose. To my destiny. To the end of my road.”

“Am I to say goodbye to you, then?” She asks, “Or will you allow me to honor my oath?”

“You will be at my side,” he assures her. “O, Eivor, you will  _ marvel  _ at the things I have to show you. A great journey awaits us yet, little drengr.”

“We should weather the storm here,” she tells him. “The seas will not be kind to us if we leave now, for the gods stir the skies and their tempers are ill.”

“But we are so  _ close,” _ he whispers, turning his eyes to the ominous sky.

“We cannot get closer if our feet turn to frozen stone in our boots and our eyes are but frozen pellets in our heads.”

He lets out a long breath, presses his lips to her forehead in surrender. “One more night,” he agrees. “For though your eyes are bright as the ice carved from Jotunheim’s waters, I would rather it was in name only.”

-

The inn is quiet and empty; the innkeeper tripping over himself in his eagerness to take their coin. He leaves them standing before his finest room, bowing enthusiastically and assuring them if they need anything at all he is at their immediate disposal. Neither of them are fooled by his over-bright hospitality. He seeks only silver to bend his teeth upon. The room is suitable enough. It is clean, with a film of dust over the hangings and furniture. It is a room few have the silver to afford, one fit for a king - and stands empty and cold despite the fire lit by the innkeeper.

The door closes behind them, and they stand just six paces apart - looking at each other over a new divide neither knows how to cross. She sits on the bed, hugging herself and shivering once more against the cold that yet beats at her bones like a frosted club. She breaks the silence first, unable to carry the weight of her questions any longer.

"Did you always mean to bring me to this place? To share in this mysterious destiny of yours we have come to seek out?"

"You regret coming here." Doubt clouds his words and carves new lines between his brows. 

“I do not,” she says softly. “For I would follow you until the sea dropped away beneath us. I am only afraid of losing you again.”  _ Gods, but I could not bear it. Not after he has only just been returned to me, in spirit as well as body. _

He crosses the room to her. He rests his hand atop her braids, and she allows herself to bend, to lean into him and draw strength from the contact. Her cheek rests against his hip as his hand soothes her.

  
  


"You will not lose me, little drengr. You will join me, in something so grand it will leave you without breath. I brought you here because there is none other I would share it with.” He strokes her braids as he speaks, his voice gentle. “You have been at my side, always. Even when I pushed you aside. Even when I doubted you. Even when I was unkind, and poison fell from my lips. For that, I am immeasurably sorry. But we will have a thousand years and more, in which I will spend every moment earning your forgiveness."

"There is nothing to forgive. You forget, I know your heart as you know mine. And you were not yourself these past long months. You were ... Different. You were changed by the torment you underwent at Fulke's hands, and the knowledge her cruelty brought.” Her voice grows softer still, the rustle of poppies shifting in the breeze. 

"I  _ know you, _ Sigurd. Where I have always acted with impatience or anger, resorting to fists or axe, you have acted with reason. When we captured Lady Aethelwith, you bid me be gentle with her. When I asked what you wished me to do with Burgred's men, still trussed like pigs for slaughter, you ordered me to let them go. You are not a cruel man. You have never been a cruel man. You are a bloodthirsty sea-soaked vikingr, yes... But you are a good man. You are courageous, and ruthless, and fight with honor. You are the finest of men. It has been an honor to serve you as my Jarl, and a...  _ gift  _ to be loved by you."

All this she says, and there is more... Lodged in her chest, unable to break free. It is too much, and it has been many long winters since she opened herself like this. It comes with pain, and the burden of it is too great. A sword in her belly might be easier to bear.

"I do not deserve this," he whispers, his hand still stroking her braids. "You are... Beyond anything I deserve, and I say this as a son of a king and a god reborn."

"I choose my own path," she tells him. "I am a thrall no none. Not even Odin himself. I will sever every thread the Nornir have ever woven if I must, but... I will not deny my heart any longer. I want only you. It is all I have ever truly wanted."

"Stand, Eivor." It is the voice of a god. It is the voice of a king. It is the voice of a man who loves her, and has always loved her. She rises from the edge of the bed and turns to face the one true thread of her tangled fate.

"It has always been you." The words are everything she wishes to say and cannot; a short verse longer than any skald's song.

"You are the only woman who might ever hold a god's heart in her hands thusly," he answers. 

They kiss, and it is as the sun meeting the moon. For nineteen winters, he has been her world - a stone beneath her feet in a troubled river, providing safe footing. A friend, who held her as she wept and healed. A warrior and a kinsman, who taught her to raise an axe. For twelve of those winters, she has loved him. They have dreamed of this moment as many times as there are stars in the sky, and only now can they live it in truth.

She opens her eyes at the softest of  _ clinks,  _ and sees he has removed one of her braid bands. He lets it fall to the floor, and it rolls across the planks before settling against the thick fur rug. She tilts her head to the side, questioning, and he kisses her once more as his hand continues its work.

"I have dreamt of this moment," he murmurs against her ear, his beard brushing against her cheek and making her shiver. "Since the day I watched as you braided your hair." 

One by one, the silver bands fall. When they are all out, he runs his fingers through her hair with a gentleness that leaves tears pricking at her eyes. She basks in it, leaning into the pressure of his fingers at times. None have ever touched her this way. She has never allowed it. Her hair has grown long during their time in England. It falls to the small of her back now, the golden waves of it shining in the amber light of their room.

"Odin take my eyes," Sigurd sighs, running his hand through it. "The goddess Sif herself would envy you."

"You will have to ask her at dinner, my lord," she teases. He laughs softly, cradling her face with his hand.

He is not done with her. Not yet. Her cloak falls to the floor, the clasp undone. Her weapons belt is next, as is her thick woolen jerkin. Soft furs greet her back as he lowers her onto the bed, pressing kisses down her throat and over her chest before undoing the lacing of first her breeches and then her boots. It is a difficult task for him, but she knows to aid him would only take something from him she could not give back. When she is entirely bared to the cold air and shivering at its sting upon her skin, he lowers himself again - and his lips, pressed to the tattoo of the sun at the joining of her hip, return warmth to her blood. It heats and boils at the long, lingering touch. He smiles, and she can feel the pull of it against her skin before he draws away from her once more. She nearly wails for the grief of it.

He turns to his next task. She watches as he lays aside his heavy chains and fur mantle, his belts and sash. His tunic joins her cloak on the floor, and then the rest follows. His eyes never leave her. He is reluctant to turn away, as though to do so will cost him even one moment of this. He is every inch a vikingr, towering over her with broad shoulders and thick muscle that could be carved from the marble Romans favored. Many of his scars, she knows. Many of them she does not. Still more are dark memories of his time at Fulke’s hands. They are the roadmap of a great warrior, each one a brand of glory or a tale of heartache. She outstretches her arms, beckoning him to her. When their bodies are pressed to each other, she realizes her sun and his wolf are mated. The great wolf, catching the moon in his jaws at last - and the world burns for them as she burns for him.

She arches beneath him as they join, her gasp muffled as she buries her face in his neck. He rests his weight on his elbow, hand buried in her freed tresses. His own pleasure is expressed through the way his fingers clutch at her freed mass of hair, tightening and tugging in a way that is both ecstasy and pain. He groans softly with each of his powerful thrusts, whispers her name against her ear.  _ Eivor, Eivor, beautiful drengr, Eivor, river of my beating heart.  _ She revels in it, her legs wrapping about him and urging him on. With each plea and moan and cry from her lips, he increases his pace. It becomes so punishing she must sink her teeth into the hard muscle of his shoulder to keep from uttering a cry loud enough to wake the draugr from their eternal rest. It only spurs his passion further, and he tightens his grip in her hair, baring her throat to gentle nips of his teeth and the heat of his tongue.

"Do not hide your joy, little drengr," he whispers, his voice hoarse and frayed. "There are none here but us. Let me hear what your lungs have so long wished to cry out."

Cry out, she does. She calls his name, again and again, as her body trembles and shudders at his urging. He takes mercy on her then, relinquishing his pace and settling for a slow and gentle rhythm that sends curls of fire twisting and winding through her blood. They are in a swan-boat on a sea of starlight, and each wave that rocks her is a beat of her heart missed. A single tear slides from one eye, then another, and another -tracing their way down her cheeks as she rises to kiss him again, and again, as though any moment this freedom will be taken from her.

_ "Eivor," _ he breathes, his voice husky and laden with love, "Why do you cry?" 

She can only shake her head. Now, as always, she finds herself mute and unable to tell him what she wishes to. Instead, she will show him - with a tenderness equal to that which he has given her. When she can move again, when she can speak, she pushes him from her with shaking hands.

She sits astride him, and his hand presses her body to his so tightly she thinks she might break. It is a hand that has broken bone and shield alike, but despite the power behind it… it is strangely gentle. Break, she does not. Her spine was not made to bend or bow, for it is as strong as her ash bow. She is a vikingr forged from battle-dew and mountain stone and the steel of an axe, as is he... Though in this moment she feels frail; a slip of ribbon that might yet snap. Sweat gleams on his brow in the golden sconce light, and she wraps her arms around his head, cradling him to her chest, hiding from his eyes lest he see the softness in her own.

He rocks his hips, fingers embedded in the lean muscle of her back between her shoulders, a groan catching in his throat as her hips cant and roll in tandem with his movements. She can feel when he is close to his end, swelling and aching within her as his breathing grows ragged. This, she can give him, though the harp-strings in her throat refuse to sing. She brings him over the precipice, glorying as he plummets. He clings to her with a grip that will bruise, and it is sweeter than any battle-victory could ever be. 

They remain locked in their embrace long after the waves have subsided, unwilling to allow this to end. They have all the time they could have ever wanted, and somehow... it is not enough. Their hunger is limitless as it chases the moon across the sky.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must apologize. I neglected to post the according art with the last chapter. Tacking it on to this one <3  
> \----------

Valhalla. She can hardly speak for the awe that fills her. To see it, to stand beside Sigurd in this great hall… To run through the golden fields and swing her axe with a power she has never felt before, not even in her earliest of days as a vikingr… It is a dream. It is the first day of many to come, and they fight side by side - swinging axe and sword as the days of old, when all of Norway bowed beneath their strength. They laugh and howl like mad wolves, and the small voice reminding her of the world and people she has left behind is drowned out by battle-song and the fire in her blood.

They drink and feast after the great horn sounds; spilling mead and singing, dancing atop the long tables where all the mightiest of fallen warriors eat, snarling at each other and stomping their boots until the very ground beneath them shakes. They are drunk on strength, on battle-dew and the heat of the finest mead either of them has ever tasted. They leave the din of the great feast, greedy and mead-fumbled fingers pulling at each other’s mantles and belts, careening into the high walls of the hall around them with each fierce kiss. She laughs with delight when he lifts her, slinging her over his shoulder with the strength of a god before carrying her the rest of the way on legs that threaten to give way.

They make love with a fury borne of years of desperate need and battle-lust still fresh from the golden fields, and the passion of it is one to rival any great saga. When it is done, they fall asleep in each other’s arms amongst the chaos of a room destroyed.

-

It is their second day, and Sigurd insists they fight each other on the golden fields. A true test of strengths, in a place where none may perish or be truly harmed. Sigurd Styrbjornsson - Sigurd, but also the mighty Tyr - against Eivor the Wolf Kissed. She refuses to acknowledge any other title. They clash, and their blows are equal in measure as they circle each other amidst a ring of shouting drengr. Again and again axe meets greatsword, until she is faster by the slip of a single breath. Sigurd falls to his knees, clutching at himself in pain. She looks to the arm, once more severed from his body and lying on the battle-bloodied ground, and something stirs in her. She has seen this before, in a vision. An arm, torn from Sigurd and staining the snow beneath it. 

_ “Sigurd,” _ she cries, dropping to her knees beside him.

“Worry not, little drengr,” he tells her, and he laughs with the bright eyes of a man who is content. “For we earn no scars here. Only battle wisdom.” 

He pulls her to him with a hand about the back of her neck, smearing her with his slick blood, and kisses her fiercely. Her unease ebbs from her like water soaking into drought-parched earth, as she forces the whispers of doubt from her mind.

Again, they feast with the other einherjar. Sigurd’s arm returns to him. One moment it is gone, and the next it is back - his hand gripping a drinking horn as mead spills over his chin and droplets cling to his beard. She is too drunk to question it, too drunk and too full of joy to care. They laugh and boast, telling tales of their many great battles and acting them out amidst scattered plates and spilled cups and the pounding fists of warriors on the tabletop. They eat and drink until their bellies are fit to burst. The mead flows until few are standing, and they stumble down the halls together once more. They fall short of their goal, and he takes her against a wall - hands clutching her thighs tightly about him as she clings to his shoulders and her mead-drunk head spins. Valhalla. They have an eternity of this before them. An eternity of glorious battle and mead on their tongues and of loving each other. She closes her eyes and cries his name to the echoing halls, and forgets the names of the people who were once family to her.

-

It is their third day on the golden fields. She swings her axe, reveling in the sensation of muscle and sinew parting beneath her blade as the warrior before her falls. Her heart beats with a wild fury, dizzying her with it’s heady rhythm. She turns her face to the sun-bright sky above her and roars like a great bear with blood on it’s tongue. She has the strength of Thor and the speed of Freyja, and Midgard must tremble at the fury of it. She turns, looking for Sigurd - and the drumbeat in her breast falters at the sight of his hunched form across the sea of golden grass stained with battle-dew. She runs to him, shoving drengr aside with her shield or striking them down with her axe until she is at his side once more. His arm is gone, and once more he cradles the bloody end of it.

“Ha!” He laughs, fingers bright with blood. “Bit to the marrow’s bed!”

Something twists in her belly. Coils of unease. “Sigurd… Again, you have lost your arm.”

“And again, it will return!” He forces himself back to his feet, and though he smiles at her and it is the smile she knows and loves and sees in her dreams - the warmth of it does not reach his eyes. 

_ Something is wrong,  _ the voice of her former self says.  _ Still yourself, and listen to the whispers of what truly is. _

Her eyes stray to the battlefield, and her body goes rigid as frost-blanketed grass. She sees the silhouette of a man she cannot forget, no matter how she tries to to remove him from her memory.  _ Varin.  _ Her father.

“Father!” She cries, turning from Sigurd. “Is that you?”

And then the great horn sounds, and she can make no progress for the drengr shouldering past her in their eagerness to feast and drink and dance the night away. She fights against them, shouldering them aside or shoving them from her - but when the field is clear once more, the man she saw is gone and there is only grass, flattened by many boots and bloodied by those who have fallen.

She does not feast that night, nor does she partake in mead or song. She sits in silence, watching Sigurd lose himself in the ecstasy of the day’s events - his arm returned to him and joining its twin as he gestures wildly and speaks of the time he and Eivor felled a buck thrice the size of any other.

She goes to bed alone, and when he joins her she finds small comfort in the heat of his body and the sweetness of mead upon his tongue. Her thoughts are elsewhere, troubled and shadowed by what she has seen. It is not until he grips her face firmly in one hand and bids her meet his eyes that she allows herself to be lost in him once more. It is only a brief reprieve, for once his breath has slowed and evened and he sleeps beside her, the voice pricks at her skin again, sharp as thorns.

_ Something is not right here.  _ It comes as a whisper in the dark of her mind.  _ Remember yourself, and your people.  _ She does not want to listen to it. It is a voice that threatens to take everything from her.

-

  
  


It is her fourth day in the halls of the gods. Again, Sigurd loses his arm in battle. 

“Next time I lose this fucking arm, I’ll beat a man to death with it!” He shouts, and there is little jest in the words as she helps him to his feet once more.

“Do you not tire of these injuries?” She asks, her heart troubled.

“Never!” He declares, picking up his sword once more and flashing his teeth in defiance. She watches as he runs back into battle, swinging his blade one-handed, and feels as though a shadow has clouded the sun’s warmth.

Once more, she thinks she sees Varin - but it is a stranger who wears his cloak when she bids him turn. An arrow darkens the sun, striking her in the left eye. Though she pulls the shaft free and knows it is a temporary wound, doubt steals her joy further. She stares up at the gates of Valhalla as the horn sounds the end of battle, and the shadow over her sun darkens further. There is no glory in the bloodied fields beyond these gates, for all who fall will only rise again. Battle-lust does not come to her, and her axe swings are joyless and empty.

She finds she has lost all appetite for any of Valhalla’s pleasures. The mead that pours unhindered has little taste on her tongue. The ample bounty of roast meats and fine cheeses, of sweetcakes and honeycomb and delicately carved fruits do nothing to stir her. They are ash, crumbling in her mouth. This is a world utterly without fire, and the cold of it is as winter’s bite upon bare skin. She wants for nothing, and yet yearns for everything. She does not join the feasting this night, only returns to her room. Tonight, she wishes to be alone with her troubling thoughts.

Sigurd seeks her out after nightfall, her door closing softly behind him as strains of music from the great feast hall drift down the corridors. She is sitting on her bed, turning Varin's axe over and over in her hands. She has been here for hours, staring at the blade and the worn haft. It is a reminder that she is here, and her father is not - his cowardice forever denying him the endless glory of battle and the great feasts of Valhalla. 

"You have not eaten," he observes. "Do you not wish to feast alongside the other drengr? To hear their songs and stories?"

"To what end?" She asks. "If this is Valhalla, then... we are dead. There is no more need for food or drink." 

"You are not happy?” His words come from one who has been wounded. “Eivor, we have  _ everything. _ We have Valhalla. We have an eternity...  _ together."  _ He lowers himself to his knees before her, rests his hands on her thighs as he looks up into her face.

"Are we truly dead, Sigurd? Is this... The end of our saga?"

"This is the beginning of forever, little drengr," he reassures her, hands gripping her with conviction. "Valhalla is ours. We may fight until our axe blades shatter, feast until our bellies burst, and drink until our heads split. We are free, here. Free of the fetters of Midgard, to do as we please. We’ve earned our joy. The journey is complete."

“I find myself unable to let go, as you have,” she confesses.

“Then let me help you,” he answers, and though the mead of Valhalla has lost its sweetness - his touch never will. She lets him steal her memory, lets him smooth the troubled waters of her spirit - and for a time, it is almost as it once was.

-

“Have you lost all your love for life?” Sigurd stares at Varin’s body on the floor, at the dagger embedded between his eyes. 

_ “That _ was not my father,” she says through clenched teeth. “That was a lie.”

“I thought this was what you wanted.” Sigurd regards her with genuine sorrow. “I have power in this place. I can create anything you wish, fulfill your every desire. He was my gift to you.”

She raises her chin. “There is only one thing I wish for, and it does not require the hand of a god. Only the god himself.”

He spreads his hands helplessly. “Eivor, I only seek to make you happy. You have been growing distant, and your heart does not sing as it did when first we came here.”

She folds her arms. “By Odin’s laws, my father is now allowed in this place. I do not wish to see him where he should not be.” 

“Your father died doing what he hoped would save you.” Sigurd’s voice is gentle, soothing. “He died to protect you, and his clan. If he had not made that sacrifice, you would not have lived. You and I would not have found each other, as we have.”

“No, he…” She lets her voice fade. For so many winters she has carried this anger within her, hated herself for loving the memory of a man who died a coward on bended knee. To forgive him in her heart would be to accept his choice, and his choice stained her honor just as her mother’s blood stained the snow.

Arms fold about her, and she allows him to pull her close. She breathes in, and even in Valhalla he smells as he always has.

“This is the end of our road, little drengr. This is Valhalla, the eternal golden field. Do not let these troubles darken your mood. Come. Battle beckons. It will renew and hearten you.”

He takes her by the hand and pulls her along behind him, back to the golden fields and the battle without true glory that awaits her. She cannot help but feel numb and empty, though she offers him a soft smile and squeezes his hand with hers. He has to sense the wrongness she does, though he gives no sign of it. She fights without joy, and when she hears his cry of pain once more, she knows what has happened. She knows what she must do, now.

“The arm!” Sigurd groans from where he has fallen. “The arm! Always the fucking arm!”

“Sigurd,” she says, and she lifts his chin to meet her gaze. “This is an illusion. A trick. Leave with me now, and return to England. Our people need us.”

“No,” he shakes his head, dislodging both her hand and her words. “I am no one in that world. I am somebody here. Powerful, capable, a god. Here I may live forever. Here, I cannot die.”

She places a hand on his chest, over his heart, and wonders if it is breaking as surely as hers is. “You are someone to me. You are  _ my _ world. All things must die, Sigurd. It is the way of the world. What matters is the life you have lived before the valkyries take you, and I… Am not ready to bring what could be to an end. Not yet. We have only just begun our saga.”

“We have everything here, Eivor.  _ Everything.”  _ He is pleading with her, begging her to still her tongue even as his fingers close over hers.

“Every day here is the same empty war, the same hollow victory. Spilling blood that tastes of water and smells of grass. You have known real battle, tasted true glory. But this is not it. You know this. I _know_ you do. It is time to leave.”

“Am I destined to follow you everywhere?” He asks, his voice breaking like wood against stone. “For the rest of my life?”

“I would follow  _ you,” _ she answers gently. “From here to the true end, I will always be at your side, Sigurd. To Valhalla... and beyond it.” She smiles at the renewal of an oath given so long ago. It is a smile carved by the hand of all the long winters of pain and longing she has weathered in her heart.

Sigurd closes his eyes, taking a deep and shuddering breath. “Alright,” he says at last, opening his eyes. “We go.”

_ “No,” _ interrupts a voice she knows well. A voice that has plagued her every step since she stood over Kjotve’s corpse.  _ “You stay. I do not give you leave to go.” _

-

Odin comes to a stop beneath a great archway. It is the same as the one from her visions. The same archway that opened this place - and Valhalla - to she and Sigurd. Now he stands before her, and gestures expansively.

_ “You have earned your place here, Eivor. Seize it!” _

She looks at him, this strange god who has plagued her dreams and questioned her choices at every turn. She knows what first Fulke and then Sigurd tried to tell her. She has not missed the way the drengr in the great feast hall call her  _ Havi,  _ or forgotten that a raven darkened her shoulder during her time in Midgard. All of this, she knows and sees - and she picks it up and places it in an iron box, before dumping it into the sea. Let the world serpent eat it and let the burden of it sit low in his belly until ragnarok comes. She made a choice, when she sat amongst the swaying poppies. A choice to own herself. To walk her own path, and cast this shadow of a god aside. She will no longer serve as Sleipnir, carrying the weight of the all-father on her back.

_ You and I… we belong to ourselves. You are still Sigurd, and I am still your Wolf-Kissed. The Nornir may weave their twisted tapestries as they will. I am done with heeding them, and my fate is my own. _

“Stand aside,” she tells the god of gods. “My people need me.”

Odin turns, face twisting with anger.  _ “I have given you everything you wanted. Everything you needed!” _

“You gave me nothing,” she spits the words like bitter ale. “It was all me!”

_ “Yet I cleared your path. I guided your axe.” _

She shakes her head. “You were a fly, buzzing in my ear. A feeble and fragile remnant, clinging to life with grasping fingers.”

_ “How dare you deny me!” _ Odin roars, and as he slams his staff into the ground, lightning flashes. She is thrown back, toppling over and over in the force of his power. She struggles to get up, shaking her head to clear the distortion in her vision. She can hear Odin’s boots approaching, wading through the black water beneath her.  _ “Everything you believe in stirs before you! Yet you question it all. You question the very gods.” _

“Even gods die,” she answers, climbing back onto her feet and drawing Varin’s axe from her belt. It is different here, in this dark place. It looks as it did the day it returned to her - the steel dulled, the leather cording about the haft less worn. It feels light in her hand, though it carries nineteen winters of sorrow in its weight.

Odin charges, his staff clanging against steel as she parries.

_ “Do not diminish yourself,” _ he snarls, circling her.

“Your corpse hall is nothing but a dream,” she retorts, spinning and lashing out with her weapon. 

_ “Nothing but a dream?” _ He repeats, and his staff strikes her hard enough to send her sprawling in the dark water once more.  _ “A dream is as real as anything in this world!” _ He speaks as he presses his attack, long sweeps of his staff forcing her further and further back.  _ “Do dreams not inspire? Do dreams not make us fearful? Do they not push men to their greatest glories?” _

In her mind’s eye, she sees the field of red flowers again; stretching from edge to edge of the wide clearing, the vermillion buds and petals shifting with the winds. She sees the sun, shining bright in it’s sky-cradle, and Sigurd beside her with love in his eyes. Sigurd, with hair like dying firelight and eyes like stars reflected on the surface of the sea. Sigurd, who waits for her somewhere beyond this dark place.

“Then I am done with dreaming!” She snaps, and though she can feel her axe bury itself in the god’s back, no blood falls. He pivots, striking her across the cheek with a closed fist before jabbing with his staff. The sharp blade guts her, sliding through meat and bone like an eel through water. She gasps at the white-hot pain of it, stumbles and falls. She presses a hand to her stomach, expecting her insides to spill from her like seeds of grain from a split sack, but there is no blood. Only the pain of it, as real as any true battle wound. She is gasping, struggling to rise. 

_ “Eivor,” _ Sigurd’s voice speaks to her from the fog and the darkness.  _ “Get up, little drengr. You must stand.”  _

A flash of soft light at the edge of her vision grows bright and then dims, but she can see two great doors - high and ornate, opened no wider than two paces - before the light goes out again. She wills her arms to cease their trembling, staggers to her feet once more, and tightens her grip about her father’s axe. She begins to run, slowly at first but picking up speed, in the direction of the doors and Sigurd’s voice. The closer she gets, the more clearly she can see them - and there is a figure standing in the opening now, a silhouette she would know in the darkest of nights or the stormiest of seas.

_ “Your place is here, with me!” _ Odin bellows, and the axe in her hand glows with golden light before she is hurtling through the black water once more, back to the all-father’s feet.

_ I guided your axe. _ Those were his words to her. 

His staff is slashing down at her once more, and she rolls out of the way just in time to avoid the strike. She leaps to her feet, bringing her axe down over and over. At times, her axe clangs harmlessly off the staff. Other times, it makes contact with his flesh, and his painted grunts are like music to her. She presses and slashes until he stumbles in the black waters, falling and tumbling away from her. Then she begins to run again.

_ “Why do you flee from the truth?” _ Odin yells, and she can hear another voice now. It is Randvi, her sweet snow fox, calling from beside Sigurd in the doorway.

“Join us,” Randi cries. “We are here for you.”

This time, she throws her axe aside as she runs, leaving it to be swallowed by ripples as black as night.

_ “What are you doing?” _ There is panic in the old god’s voice now, and she can hear the rush of feet as he pursues her.  _ “Take up your axe! Wield it like a true warrior!” _

Sigurd and Randvi extend their hands, and she outstretches her own. Fingers close about her extended arm, and they are pulling her, pulling her the last few feet though Odin’s hold over this place resists.

_ “Take up your axe!” _ Odin screams, and she can all but feel his breath upon her neck. In a motion that has become second nature to her, she extends the hidden blade upon her wrist and sweeps her arm in an outward arc. Odin screams again as the blade makes contact, stumbling backward in pain and fury.

_ “Coward of cowards!” _ He roars, and there is a flash of lightning and a blast of heat and power. 

She and Sigurd and Randvi tumble back into the black water, and she sees now there are others here. Hytham, and Valka. They help her to her feet, stagger with her towards the still-open doors. There are still more inside. Her family, her loved ones. Her clan. Her father and mother, Varin and Rosta. They look just as they did before Kjotve took them from her, and the sight of them makes her ache in a way she has never ached before. It is an ache deeper than grief, than pain, than sorrow or marrow spilling from broken bone. It is an ache that finally makes her bend, for it is love. Love, and the ability to forgive. She stumbles forward with the others, reaching out to the people she has missed so terribly for so long, and allows them to pull her into their embrace and the light beyond the doors. 

A hand with a grip like iron stops her from taking the final step, and she turns to look Odin in the face. Scarred, like hers - but ugly and gnarled like an old tree, twisted in fear and rage. 

_ “Leave me now and you are nothing,”  _ he gasps. _ “With me, you have wisdom! Glory! Power! What more do you need?”  _

She looks away from him, back to the faces of her parents. Sigurd. Randvi. For all the knowledge and power in the world… there is one thing it cannot bring her.

“Everything else,” she answers. With one final twist of her arm, she dislodges Odin - and the closing doors silence his despairing howl.

  
  
  



	20. Chapter 20

_ “Why?” _ She cannot help but ask again. The sight of the man writhing beneath her grip, face twisted in hate, tears at her like great claws.

“I trusted you with  _ everything,” _ Basim gasps in answer, and there is both poison and great sorrow in his eyes. “And you took it from me.”

She almost stumbles as Basim’s knife slips between her ribs, crying out at the pain of it. The blow comes too late for him to save himself. Even as he struggles against her grip on his neck, the strange and metallic tree of life bears him away. Basim is lifted from the ground, limp like a child’s doll, left to hang upon its branches like a noose at a crossroads. She stares up at him, bracing a hand to her side, still numb from shock at the betrayal. Basim, who she has grown to love as family. Who she has trusted, and called  _ brother  _ as he called her  _ ukhti.  _ The man who was her friend when Sigurd could not be. His betrayal is as sharp as any blade, though she knows it was not meant for her. He hates her for the sting of old wounds. Wounds carved upon his heart by another’s hand... A hand she refused to dance for.

“Does he still live?” She asks, her breathing ragged, when Sigurd joins her. She cannot tear her eyes away from the man suspended above her.

“He does. But in darkness.” Sigurd pulls her to him, turning with concern at her pained grunt at the contact.

“You’re hurt,” he breathes, fingers coming away bloody from where he pressed them. 

“I’ll not be darkening Valhalla’s door again so soon,” she gasps. “I will live yet.”

Sigurd supports her with his arm, and together they step off the great platform and sit upon one of the low stone plinths at its edge. She looks down at the great chasm below and edges closer to Sigurd, leaning into his side. They are both exhausted and weak, as though their bodies withered as they were suspended in the false world. For a long moment neither of them speak. It is too much to comprehend all at once.

“For how long had Basim been planning this treachery?” She wonders aloud, when she can bear the silence no longer.

Sigurd shakes his head. “I dare not guess. That man’s anger... His rage. It had a familiar sting that I… I cannot place.”

“He is from before, then? A reborn god, as you are?”

“Perhaps,” Sigurd nods. “He spoke of me as if he knew me, though it was without true enmity. Perhaps we were friends, once.”

She closes her eyes and nods, wincing from the pain in her ribs. Her hand is slick with blood, her tunic stained. It is a wound that will require attention, for Basim's blade scored deep.

“We should cast our eyes towards home. It’s a long journey, and I… Am not well.”

He turns a worried eye to her. “We will return to Alrekstad, and see to your injury. Can you walk?”

“I can still beat you in a fight, if you wish to try me.” A corner of her mouth lifts, her knowing smirk returned. 

Sigurd laughs, taking her chin in his fingers and turning her face towards his. “You already fought one god today, little drengr. I believe you could.”

She smiles up at him. “Then let us go home, my Jarl. I long for a bed other than this ice and stone around us.”

“Eivor.” Sigurd’s eyes darken at the use of his title, and his voice turns somber. “I am not the man I was. My time as the Jarl of our clan has run short. You must lead us now.”

“Sigurd, I... _. _ I don’t want this.” She shakes her head, freeing herself of his grip. “You are the son of a king, and more - as you say. It is you who should lead us. I am ill-suited to such matters.”

“Randvi has spoken often of your bravery, your courage, your wisdom. In my absence, you were a pillar of stone. You forged many alliances for our clan, while I... abandoned my responsibilities to our people. She admires you. Rightfully so.”

“And I her,” she admits. “But that cannot be the only reason.”

“There are more,” he nods. “When Dag challenged you, you fought him only reluctantly. You let him die with honor, in spite of his betrayal.”

“He did what he thought was right, and I honor that.” 

Sigurd sighs, as though she is only furthering his cause. “During our search for the Saga Stone, you disagreed with my orders… but you followed them. You questioned my methods, my aims, but you did not disobey. Even in the face of my madness, my cruel words, and my poor treatment of you. Even though you had every right to.”

She lowers her eyes at the memory, the words forgiven but not forgotten. He continues, his calm gaze remaining on her face.

“Time and again, I pressed you to return my affections. I would have done anything for you, even allowed war to continue between our clan and Randvi’s. I wouldn’t have cared how many died, if it meant I could have you. Every time I pressed, you pushed me away - refusing to dishonor her, and forcing me to honor my own commitment. I burned for you so brightly the sun itself envied me, and still you stayed beyond my reaching fingers. I admired you for it, however reluctantly. I envied your strength, for in the face of wanting something so desperately you still managed to stay your hand. I am the son of a king, as you say, and had grown far too used to taking what I could reach. I pushed you, strained my oath to just beyond breaking, and for that... I am sorry.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she manages to whisper. “For I wanted you just as much.”

“But this, more than all others…” He says, pulling her to him and cradling her head against his chest. “When I returned from my ordeal at Fulke’s hands, bleeding and broken, I said terrible things to you. Things I would have killed any other for uttering to you. You could have withdrawn, then. Hated me, and left me to rot in the prison of my body. But you wouldn’t let me. You bowed your head against the heat of my searing words, and pulled me from the darkness that surrounded me.”

“You would have done the same for me.” She is glad he cannot see her face, for tears once more prick at her eyes as though she again faces the stinging wind of a storm.

“In all my days of fog and confusion, you have shown great strength and wisdom and leadership.” He kisses the top of her head. “Where you go, I will follow. Our clan is yours to lead.”

“It is a long way to England,” she says into the black fur of his mantle. “Let me think on your words, and when we set foot on our shore once more… I will give you my answer.”

“That is enough, for now,” he agrees.

She sits upright again, the pain in her side less sharp for the cold air chilling her blood, and lets out a long breath.

“You have a stormy look about you,” he observes.

“Long ago, before we left for England… I saw a vision. A vision that foretold a betrayal. That I… would betray you.”

Recognition kindles in his eyes. “The words Valka spoke to you. The ones you have held carefully to your chest, all this time.”

“The same,” she nods. “I refused to believe it.  _ I would never do such a thing,  _ I told myself. But in the time since, I have robbed you of your dreams. Of me. Of England. Of Valhalla. If you feel I have wronged you... I will make it right. That is my oath.”

“You took nothing from me, little drengr. If there is anyone to blame for all this, it is I. My desperation to be beyond myself, to seize what I felt owed… It came with a terrible price. But we cannot unweave our fates, Eivor. All is laid before us, from the day we are born. To be angry at this would be like… Wrestling the ocean. A pointless struggle. I was always destined to falter and fail, and you… You were destined to be strong where I was weak.” His eyes are gentle, and there is nothing but warmth in their depths where he holds her gaze.

She thinks of Odin. Of his whispering words in her ear. At his attempts to twist her and shape her into his own image. His fury at being denied, and the fear in his eye when she cast him from her.  _ But I  _ can _ choose my own fate, Sigurd. I have chosen it. _

“I never wanted anything but you,” she says softly. “And I thought… I thought it could not be. I was wrestling an ocean, all this time.”

Sigurd laughs again, rising to his feet and extending his hand to aid her. “If any were to succeed in such a thing, it would be you, little drengr. Let us go now, for I am suddenly quite hungry.”

“You are always hungry, you great lumbering ox,” she answers, accepting his hand.

-

The wound in her side pains her even as they step onto the docks of Ravensthorpe once more. It feels like a wound of the spirit as much as it does one of the flesh; a significance that is not lost on her. Sigurd takes her hand in his, and together they walk up the worn path to the longhouse once more. It is late, and the settlement is shadowed by evening light. Fireflies dance on the air, their glowing ends mingling with the winking stars. She has missed this land. The smell of damp earth, of decaying leaves and sun-warmed slopes. Norway is beautiful, but it is a stark and majestic and wild sort of beauty. There is an emptiness to it, and that emptiness evokes a yearning in turn. The same yearning a small bird must feel when it begins to test the strength of its wings, dreaming of open skies and a world beyond twigs and mud.

She has seen much of the world, both Norway and England, and has found it to be empty without the man at her side. She stops him in the doorway of the longhouse, squeezing his fingers tightly in her own. When he looks down at her with puzzlement in his eyes, she stands on her toes and presses a kiss to his lips. She needs this moment. It is the last moment of him belonging to her and she to him, before they belong to their clan once more.

Inside the longhouse, she inspects the long tables of the hall, lifting empty cups and chuckling at the piles of bones and crusts of bread.

“We have missed a great feast it seems,” she says. “And if they drank all the mead, I’ll hang them by their toes from the rafters.”

“Eivor.”

She turns, eyes seeking Sigurd, and finds him standing beside the heavy wooden chair at the head of the hall.

“Sit a moment, and rest.” He gestures at the chair that was once his. She hesitates, and he beckons with his hand. “Please, little drengr. For me.”

Slowly, as one walking to the end of their saga, she approaches the dais. She sits in the chair, and though it is not the first time she has done so, it feels new. New, and somewhat frightening. She looks up at him, seeking reassurance, and there is only love in his eyes. He turns as if to go, but she catches his arm, stopping him.

“We rule together,” she tells him. “As we always have.” They are words he once spoke to her, in their early days on England’s shores, and she will not do this alone now. 

“Gift of the gods!” A familiar voice cries, and Randvi is running towards them. “You are back!”

“Safe, and standing tall,” Sigurd answers. He does not move to shake Eivor’s grip from his arm, and Randvi’s knowing eyes shine when she meets Eivor’s gaze. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?" Randvi asks, turning back to Sigurd.

“We did,” he nods. “We did. But it was not for us.”

Randvi looks greatly relieved, and as the shock of seeing them ebbs, she turns her focus to the sight of Sigurd standing as Eivor sits in the great chair.

“What is this?” She demands, hands on her hips and a suspicious smile twitching at her lips.

“I, ah…” Eivor cannot speak. She does not know what to say, or how to say it. She looks to Sigurd, eyes silently pleading for his aid.

“Our new Jarlskona,” Sigurd answers, saving her. “May she be more wise than she is eloquent. I think she left her tongue in Norway.”

“I knew I should have fed you to Loki’s hissing son,” she retorts.

“Eivor’s returned!” A voice cries from the doorway. It is Tove, bearing a torch and all of Ravensthorpe following at her heels. “Inside, at the hearth! Come!”

“Your secret is no longer safe,” Randvi laughs. 

“What is all this? Is everything alright?” Gudmund asks, raising his torch to peer at Eivor.

“Our Jarlskona is returned,” Sigurd answers. “To lead us forward in uncertain times.”

All eyes turn to Eivor, and she suddenly feels as though this chair beneath her is quite hard and quite cold and far too large.

“Will you speak to your people, Jarlskona?” Randvi asks, with a wink meant only for her.

As though in a dream she would rather wake from, she stands. She searches herself for the right words, but none seem to fit. “For love and joy, words can jade. Our souls must sound in a heartful song. And when... “ She trails off, shaking her head. “No... no. You are less mine than I am yours. I ask of you only this, keep me honest in the times to come.”

Words she well means, for she is weary of the endless treachery and hearbreak they have found upon these shores. _Fulke. Ivarr. Basim._ Too much blood has been spilt, and there is a part of her that still fears Odin's tendrils will return, snaking their way into her thoughts once more. She is afraid of their poison. They look at her, these people who have fought beside her and held her up when she did not have the strength to do so herself. Some old friends, some new - but all as much her family as if blood had bound them. The silence stretches out with seeming unending, and her heart beats in her ears even with the comfort of Sigurd at her side. Bragi steps forward first, and begins to beat his fist against his chest.

“Hearken well, in hall of kings,” he begins to sing. “On ocean-steed, my words gain wings…”

“Odin’s mead, I forth will bring,” Randvi joins in, her voice high and clear as birdsong.

“For noble deeds, thine honor sing!” Holger shouts from the back. As usual, he is quite off-key. One by one, the others join in, voices raising until the sound of it is one to rival a mighty spear-din.

_ We beat and blazed our trail of red _

_ Til Odin gazed _

_ Upon the dead _

_ Then horns resounds the mighty hall _

_ For those who fight  _

_ And those who fall _

She cannot move or speak, for she is overcome in this moment. They _accept_ her, as readily as a smooth swan-road accepts oars. There is pressure between her shoulders as Sigurd pushes her forward gently, urging her to go to her people. She wills her legs to move her forward and walks among them, her own voice joining the others. When she looks back to the great vikingr standing a head above the rest, she thinks her heart-song might beat it’s last note.

The mead stores remain despite the recent feast, and it pours now like a golden river - filling her drinking horn again and again as eager hands continue to fill it. She sits, straddling the bench beneath her - and Sigurd joins her, his longer legs framing hers as she leans back into him. They drink from the same horn, she lifting it to his lips that he might not be made to relinquish the arm wrapped about her waist. None question it, nor comment. It is something they have all long seen coming, it would seem, for she has not carried her secrets as close to her chest as she once thought. One by one, her brothers and sisters either return to their homes or fall asleep over the sprawling feast tables in drunken heaps, until even Randvi yawns and wishes them a good sleep. They are alone once more. He brushes her hair aside, kisses the back of her neck, and the mead singing through her boils with the heat of it.

“To bed, mighty Jarlskona?” He asks.

“In time,” she answers. “But just now, I would have a different sort of warmth.”

She is awake long after sleep takes him, and though the cool air on skin still shining with the sheen of sweat chills her, she is loathe to pull the furs over herself. To move would mean to dislodge him. To disentangle her legs from his, and wiggle out from beneath the heavy arm laid over her. There are things she meant to say to him, before  Njörun swept him up in her arms, but the gentle rise and fall of his chest against her tells her she is too late for such things. And so, she says it to the high rafters overhead and the adornments of the room. To the fireflies skimming over Valka’s pond, and the horses with their heads hanging low in sleep. She says it to the fish dancing in the river’s currents, and to the birds roosting in the trees. Most of all, she says it to the mountain of a vikingr beside her, with his gilded lashes and hair kissed by sun and fire and the glow of the guttering candle. The man who was once a torch, lighting her way… until she became the torch for him.

“I love you,” she says, to all who would hear it and none that shall. “And I will love you until death takes me. And even then, I will love you beyond death.”

And because he is asleep and cannot hear these words, she tells him once more - as they join amidst a sea of flowers, as red as the heart that beats only for him.

  
  
  
  
  



	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final Hamtunscire arc spoilers ahead!!
> 
> \----------------

Guthrum’s approaching footsteps are barely heard. She stands atop the hill, looking out over the land before her as the last rays of sun disappear behind the trees. She is cold and she is empty, and there is a pervasive despair trapped beneath her breast that she cannot seem to dislodge. A great hand, crushing her beneath its weight. Their victory in Hamtunscire is a hollow one, for she has lost far too many friends. Ubba, dead. Soma, and Hjorr, and sweet Hunwald. The latter is the greatest loss, for Hunwald was nothing but brave and genuine and earnest. 

She curses herself for not heeding Valka’s words before riding off.  _ Please, Eivor, you must wait. If you go, the home you return to will not be the home you remember.  _ Damn the seer, and her scattered bones and pungent herbs. It was a warning Eivor might have heeded, had it been given before her return to Norway with Sigurd. Now, she believes in nothing - and her fear of trusting Valka, of being a god’s puppet, has led to fathomless sorrow.

“Time to send our friends to their great reward,” Guthrum says as he draws to a halt. “Will you do the honors?”

She doesn’t turn to face him. She can’t. Not while such raw pain is worn on her face so openly. “Nothing awaits them,” she answers, her voice hoarse from mourning and the smoke of burning thatch. “They lived, they died. Now their bodies will burn to cinders. Their saga ends here.”

Guthrum cannot begin to understand what she has seen, what she knows of Valhalla. None of it is real, nor was it ever real. There is no corpse hall, no golden fields. The gods of their stories and sagas and songs do not exist. The people of Midgard are mere puppets of meat and bone, the strings of which are held by fingers she cannot fully understand and refuses to. When she told him of Soma’s death, and his response was one of joy at her return to Odin - she considered beating the would-be king with her fists until the joy left his eyes. The only thing that stayed her was the knowledge that it would be as meaningless as everything else. It would not bring her friends back. It would not undo what had already been done.

“Well, don’t tell them that.” Guthrum’s voice is gentled by his own grief. She closes her eyes, swallows what threatens to choke her, and turns. He extends the torch he carries, and she takes it. Together, they walk down the hill and to the waiting pyres.

“Victory is ours,” she says to the waiting crowd. She does not meet their eyes. Her gaze is only for her friends. For Soma, who has found peace in death. Her brow is smooth and untroubled, her hands folded over her axe. Soma, who died with the surety of faith in a life beyond this one. “But it came at a great cost. Soma Jarlskona, who stood at Guthrum’s right hand… She will live on in our memories, from now until the end of days.”

She lowers the torch, igniting the pyre Soma rests upon. Flames immediately lick greedily at dry wood, and she finds she can hardly see for the tears that swim in her eyes.

“And to Hjorr… warrior, husband, and friend. He made the ultimate sacrifice. I here repay it.” Again, she lowers the torch - and soon Hjorr’s form is engulfed in flame. Behind her, she hears Ljufvina muffle a sob. Her friend’s grief is an arrow through her own heart, tearing through her flesh.

“To Hunwald,” she says, and this one hurts the most. Sweet Hunwald, the less-than-ferocious swan. Who threw his arms about her whenever he was excited, like a gleeful child. Who might faint at the slightest praise from her lips. Praise she regrets being so sparse with now, for in his skinny body Hunwald carried the hearts-strength of a hundred drengr. Memory overtakes her, and her words falter as she steps into another time that feels so recent in her heart.

  
  


_ “Come, Eivor!” Hunwald’s eyes are mead-bright as he stumbles towards the horses. “Let me show you the splendor of my shire.” _

_ “You Saxsons and your tiny slender - I mean, splendor,” she slurs as she climbs into Svaðilfari’s saddle. “You’ve never seen mountains, have you? Or deep fjords, like a… like a giant’s axe wound.”  _

_ Svaðilfari lurches forward beneath her, irritated by her drunkenness, and she nearly upends over his hindquarters. Hunwald sees, and giggles drunkenly. _

_ “Or towering falls that steam in the dead of winter,” she continues, braving a sweeping gesture with one arm. “Snow sparkling like a blanket of jewels. That is… hic… splendor.” _

_ “Well,” Hunwald retorts, leaning precariously in his own saddle. “If your homeland is so… splendor-ful, why come to England at all?” _

_ She grins widely at him. “It is hard to grow crops on a blanket of jewels, little Saxon.” _

_ “Ha!” Hunwald exclaims. “Very true.” And with that, he topples from his saddle like an ungainly sack of potatoes from a farmer’s cart. It takes them nearly ten minutes to return him to his seat, both of them almost too ale-addled to stand, and she finds herself wondering how in Helheim the half-wit got up there to begin with. _

  
  


She swallows hard, forcing memories of the past down. “Whose kind heart has now led him to his father’s side. May his god welcome him with open arms.”

She looks to each of her fallen friends in turn, and the sorrow is so great her bones ache, ache to the marrow of her bones. So much death, so much blood upon the soil, and it is all wasted. Aelfred is escaped, and the world burns behind him. She lowers the torch one more time, her hand trembling only slightly as Hunwald joins the others on their journey to ash.

“Let us send them on their way,” she manages to croak out. “all our beloved dead, our fallen warriors, and speed them… to their end.”

They drink when it is done, emptying horn after horn of Saxon ale. She leaves as the great fires begin to gutter on the charred remnants of the wood that fed them, returning to the top of the hill. She climbs the thick branches of the oak there, until the ground is far below her and the sound of drunken drengr is distant to her ears. She perches in the crook of two forking branches, and when Synin alights on her bracer, she gratefully strokes the sleek head and allows her tears to fall. Death has never struck her so grievously as it does now. All her life, she found comfort in knowing there was a great land beyond this. That should she fall in battle, the gates of Valhalla would open to her. Now, she has seen the hall of the gods - and it is empty. A false dream, a trick. And with that knowledge comes the understanding that all who have fallen along this bloody path to pacifying England did so pointlessly. Nothing awaits them, as surely as nothing awaits her. Or Sigurd. They will never be together again, beyond this life. Their brief taste of Valhalla, their shared joy… It was cruel falsity. All things, however slowly they unfold, are now temporary. 

She is too lost to hear Vili’s approach, and it is not until his weight shakes the leaves of the branches beneath her and Synin takes flight once more that she breaks from the bonds of thought. She peers down at him, and despite herself she feels a smile tug at her lips.

“Arse-stick.”

“Hej, Eivor,” he answers with a grin. “Do you mean to roost as a crow, now? Have you gathered many fine things for your nest atop this tree?”

“Perhaps you are a crow, too,” she growls. “Let me kick you from your tenuous perch, and we will see if you fly like one.”

She wipes at her face, hoping the darkness of night has concealed them from Vili. He is one of her oldest friends, but she is not one to share such feelings with any save Sigurd.

“You must allow yourself to feel these things,” Vili says from his branch beneath her. “For though we know they have gone to their great rest, it does not lessen the pain of their passing. Your grief honors them. It is a tribute to their mighty sagas.”

“Be careful, Vili.” Words from a throat that would betray her with it’s tightness. “You are almost making sense. I worry you have hit your head on one of these branches.”

Vili chuckles. “I only wish to comfort my friend, in a time of great sorrow. As she once did for me, when similar thoughts darkened my mind. You are different, from last I saw you. There is a shadow in your eyes, one that clings to your words. Are you yourself, Eivor, or have these past days clouded your sun?”

“Many things have clouded my sun,” she confesses. “I have found much joy, but equally great sorrow. My thoughts are… scattered. Birds, caught in a sea-storm and struggling to find land.”

“There is always land,” he answers softly. “You taught me as much, in your time at my side. Those you love are the sand and pebbles beneath sea-weary feet.Your family, your clan, are the lantern-light in the fog. Allow yourself to see its bobbing beacon, and you will find your way to shore. They are all that truly matter, in times when you feel you have lost everything.”

“Being a Jarl has changed you, Vili,” she says with some surprise. “You’ve developed a taste for words as much as you have for battle-dew.”

“Do not tell the others,” Vili smiles, and she can see the gleam of his teeth in the moonlight. “They think me a mad drengr, feeder of crows, and I’d have it no other way.”

“I need to go,” she tells him. “I should return to my clan, as you say.”

“You do that, Wolf-Kissed. And should you ever need a friend beyond your own shores, I will be around.”

  
  


-

Both Randvi and Sigurd approach her as she steps onto the dock once more. She can see from their expressions that word has reached Ravensthorpe ahead of her. She tries to be strong, as stalwart and steadfast as she has always been - but the years in England have been long, and her heart is too heavy a burden to carry alone. As one, they pull her into an embrace. She finds herself cradled between them - Sigurd’s one arm about her waist, Randvi’s about them both. A hiccuping sob, more like a cough than anything else, escapes from between Eivor’s lips. She is grateful Sigurd and Randvi stand so close, for their bodies shield her weakness from the view of others. A heavy hand rests on her shoulder, then, and she knows without turning it is Gunnar. Mouse whines at her feet, and she feels the weight of him leaning into the backs of her legs.

“You are home, little drengr,” Sigurd murmurs to her. “And whatever you need, we will provide it.”

Were it any other time, she would ask to be alone. She would retreat into the forest with only her horse and raven for company, and she would dwell among the trees until the ache in her lessened. But not this time. Not after everything she has lost.

“Mead,” she manages to say. “And your… company. That is all I want, just now.”

They walk alongside her to the longhouse - Randvi holding her left hand, Sigurd holding her right. They sit at a long feast table, and Gunnar pours the mead as she shares the events of Hamtunshire. She loses her voice a couple times, unable to speak the words she would form, but there is no pressure from her audience. They gaze at her with nothing but love in their eyes, and she is reminded once more of her final words with Odin.

_ What more do you need? _

  
  


_ Everything else. _

  
  


She lowers her tankard, falling suddenly silent and looking from Sigurd’s face to Randvi’s to Gunnar’s. They gaze back,, waiting for her next words.

“You are…” she clears her throat, willing it to work this once. “You are my everything else. All of you.”

And though the words only mean something to her, they seem to understand. Randvi covers one of her hands with her own two, and Sigurd rests his atop Eivor’s head - drawing her in for a gentle kiss to her temple. Gunnar, somewhat intimidated by the untempered display of emotion from his ordinarily stalwart friend, pours more mead. Beneath the table, Mouse rests his head on Eivor’s boots. Something loosens, something mends - and it is like all those years ago, when Randvi’s deft hands and sharp needle sewed her shoulder closed once more. This wound, as all others, will heal - and it is thanks to those who help pull what is torn back together again.

-

She is well-pleased when Gunnar approaches her with the request to be wed. She cannot make sense of what Brigid says, not even after all these months of knowing the woman, but there is no denying the joy in her old friend’s eyes. She agrees readily, and as Gunnar walks back down the path with a new spring in his step, she turns to the longhouse. She must find Randvi, and start the preparations for a celebration befitting their friend. She hears a telltale giggle upon entering the feast hall, and she approaches the alliance room with curiosity. She knows that laugh, for she has heard it from Randvi many times over the years. She is more interested in the cause of it. Her footsteps are light upon the smooth wooden planks, and when she peers around the corner, she is surprised to see Birna and Randvi standing so close their nose tips are nearly touching. Randvi giggles again, and Birna grins impishly at whatever she has just whispered. Birna sees Eivor first, looking over Randvi’s shoulder, and her smile widens further, unabashed.

“Hej, Eivor.”

“Eivor!” Randvi turns, and her cheeks immediately flame to the tips of her ears. She pats at her hair, at her face, clears her throat. She looks like a child who has been caught with their hand in the sweetbreads.

“I did not mean to interrupt,” Eivor says with a sly smirk. “I will leave you to your... conversation.”

“No need, Eivor. I was just leaving.” Birna’s eyes sparkle, and before Randvi can dance out of the way, she places a firm kiss on one high cheekbone. Randvi’s blush deepens to a rich scarlet. Birna leaves, and as she passes Eivor, the former smuggler gives her a gentle fist to the arm. 

_ “Snow fox,”  _ Eivor laughs as soon as Birna is gone. “You have been busy forming new alliances yourself, I see.”

  
  


“It’s, well, It just… It happened,” Randvi sputters, all composure lost. “She has been… a great comfort to me.”

  
“And you to her, I have no doubt.” She claps her friend on the shoulder, and smiles widely. “It is a good match, Randvi. Birna has a kind and hearty spirit. I have only the greatest affection for her.”

“You came here to speak with me on something?” Randvi asks, busying her hands with a stack of letters, still blushing furiously.

“Gunnar wishes to be wed,” she answers. “And as Jarlskona, it is my duty to see it done. Planning such things is… Not what I was fated for. I was hoping you might aid me in seeing to a proper celebration.”

“Oh!” Randvi exclaims, letters scattering as her hands come up to her face, pressing to her heated cheeks. She is entirely undone, and Eivor finds it greatly amusing. “What lovely news! Yes, of course. I will see it done. I’ll need some time. I know nothing about Saxon customs, and we will need flowers… and a gown for her, something nice…” 

Randvi bustles out of the room, grateful for the redirection. Eivor watches her go, smiling to herself. It would seem there is more happiness to be found amongst her clan than she suspected. Gunnar and Brigid, Randvi and Birna… and she and Sigurd. Sand and pebbles, beneath her feet... And a bobbing light amidst the storm, to guide her home.

“It’s been going on a while,” Sigurd’s voice says from behind her. She turns, to see him standing in the doorway. Gods, but he fills the frame of it. Were he any taller, the top of his head would skim the doorway. “I considered telling you, but I thought it best you see for yourself. I didn’t want to ruin the joy of discovery.”

“I have missed so much, being away so long.” There is true regret in her voice. “And I came back with nothing but more death to share.”

“You carried more than ill tidings with you,” he answers, crossing the room to her and pulling her into him. She nuzzles her face into the warm curve of his neck. Beneath her cheek, the black wolf’s fur mantle is soft and sleek. He has worn it every day since she first placed it upon his shoulders. His hand strokes her back up and down, the sensation comforting.  _ “You _ came back. That is all I could ever want.”

“I will always return to you,” she murmurs. “No matter what stands in my way.”

“Even if it is a god standing in your way,” he agrees. “So, what is this I hear of Gunnar? He is to be wed at last?”

“Yes,” she answers, tightening her arms about his waist. “But my skill is with an axe, not gathering flowers. Randvi seems… inspired for the task. I will let her prepare.”

“Let us go on a ride,” he proposes. “And clear our minds of so many recent shadows.”

“I would like that,” she admits. “Where will we go?”

He smiles softly. “I know of a beautiful little glade, just beyond a waterfall. A valkyrie once took me there, and sung to me in a voice so low and sweet the larks fell from the sky in their envy.”

“I’ll not be singing to you again,” she retorts with a grin. “But it is a fine idea, besides.”

They take little with them, for it is only a few hour’s ride from Ravensthorpe. They set out in the brilliant light of late morning, and Svaðilfari is in a fine mood. He arches his neck proudly and sidles, snorting and prancing. She laughs and strokes his shining neck, allowing the behavior. It has been too long since she last rode him, and he tosses his head at her touch in delight.

Sigurd tells her of all she has missed during her time in Hamtunscire, and the tales warm her heart. Randvi and Birna, stealing away into the woods - unaware Holger spied them sneaking off and wrote a song about it. Rowan’s prize mare, her tail returned over time, now with foal. There is no way to be sure, but Svaðilfari is under deep suspicion regarding the unknown parentage. Hytham, allowing Tove to give him his first tattoo - thought where, or what, none could say. Hytham only blinks innocently when asked, delicately shifting the conversation elsewhere.

The glade is just as she remembers it. Mossy grass, lush from the proximity of the water. Tall, leafy trees casting great shadows. Bees drifting from flower to flower, unconcerned with the two vikingr setting foot nearby. They leave the horses to graze contentedly. He watches in surprise as she begins to remove her weapons, then her gear.

“The water is warm,” she says with a shrug, letting her cloak fall. “You can join me, unless you prefer the company of squirrels and buzzing insects.”

His answer is the loosening of his belt, accompanied by a raised eyebrow. She smirks at him, shedding her soft leather leggings and noting with satisfaction the way his eyes never leave her. He has eyes only for her, as it has always been, and only now in the freedom of their new life might they indulge in such things. She looks over her shoulder at him before diving in a neat arc into the water. He follows shortly thereafter, making an enormous splash that rocks her like a boat at sea.

“What ho, a great ox lumbers into my waters,” she laughs, splashing him in turn. He swims towards her. It is a slower affair now, for with one arm it requires some effort - but he reaches her in due time, and they embrace, floating together as the current nudges against them gently. 

“Sometimes I think myself in a dream that I cannot wake from,” he confesses, and his blue eyes are troubled as he gazes at her. “Am I? Is this a dream?”

“If it is a dream, then what greater reality pulls you from me?” She asks. She regrets the words as soon as she speaks them, for his face darkens.

“I dreamed often, when Fulke had me. It was all I had to escape her torments. I would dream of you, but… the pain kept me from our shared place. I could only grasp at memories of you, of our life before England. I would see you, feel you beneath my fingertips - and then you would be gone, and there was only the chair’s cruel fangs beneath my shaking limbs.”

“Fulke is dead,” she whispers fiercely, kissing him. “And this is no dream. There are no more tricks to be played on us. No dreams, or false hopes of Valhalla. Only you and me, until we meet our ends. Perhaps we will grow to be toothless, an old crone and a greybeard, too withered to lift an axe.”

“I can’t imagine such a thing,” he says with a soft laugh, the shadows clearing once more. “For you are too strong and too fearless to bow to old age.”

“Elli saps strength from us all; for even the mighty Thor could not withstand her grip.” Even as she says this, she regrets the words. For there is no Thor. No gods, or Valhalla. But Sigurd only smiles.

“You are mightier than Thor, I think. And far more beautiful.” 

“You great bearded fool,” she says fondly, kissing him again. “There is no need to flatter me with honeyed words, for my heart is already yours.”

They laugh and splash in the summer-warmed waters. They chase fish, fingers never quite closing about the darting slips offsilver. They catch a dragonfly, marveling at its many colors before releasing it once more. Sigurd picks flowers from the water lilies and places them amongst her braids precariously, declaring her queen of the forest. They bask in the sun, allowing it to dry their sodden hair and shriveled skin - and as the sky turns gold and crimson and the shadows grow long, they make love amidst the wildflowers growing beneath the trees. Stems and grass press into her knees, leaving their marks in her skin as she leans over him. Her loosened hair cascades about them in a curtain of shining gold as their lips meet. _I love you,_ he tells her, the words spoken against her trembling lips. _Little drengr. Wolf-Kissed one._ _My vikingr queen. Eivor of the Raven-Clan. Drengr with a Jotun’s heart. I have loved you until Valhalla and back again, and I will always love you._

It isn’t until true night falls, and the fireflies begin to dance over the surface of the water and the crickets take up their evening song, that he says what she knows he has long meant to say. She has expected it on the long ride here, waited for it even as they splashed in the water. She knows him, as one knows the lines of their own palm - and she has seen the thought take flight in his eyes. Sigurd, stubborn as stone, has fixed his mind on it. They are lying on their backs now, his feet facing east and hers west, so close their ears and cheeks touch. They are still bare, their clothes heaped in piles at the water’s edge, though her skin is yet warm from the memory of the sun upon it. 

“Let us be married, Eivor. We have waited far too many winters for this. I would see it done before life might intervene once more.”

She closes her eyes when he says it, not trusting them to open. If they open, she will surely cry - and it is a habit she seems unable to break where he is concerned. What a stumbling and childish fool he has made her into.

“Eivor?” He prompts, when no answer comes.

She is thinking of Oswald and Valdis. Of Finnr’s words, spoken so long ago.  _ What of you, Eivor? Will the day come when you set your axe to rest and seek a life of peace and comfort? _

She is battle-weary. She has grown tired of hefting her axe, and of the bloody trails left to turn to rivers behind her, all through this land. She would never have imagined anything else for herself, where the events in England different. But learning the truth of this world and the next have changed her. Loving Sigurd, and being  _ allowed  _ to love him freely has changed her. 

“I’ll not wear a gown, lord,” she manages to say, “Nor will I weave posies in my hair.” 

“I knew you’d say yes,” he answers, with all the smugness and self-assurance of his years before England. She is heartened to hear the arrogance, for it is the truest sign of the Sigurd she knows so well. She realizes something, as she feels the round of his cheek against hers lift in a smile. Her Sigurd is at last returned to her fully. He is completely himself in this moment, as though time and pain have never worn on him.

“You horse’s arse, I should drown you in the lake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes the Eivor chapters. If you want to stick around... There will be chapters shedding light on Sigurd's POV. <3 If not, perfectly okay! Thank you for sticking around and reading, and your wonderful support and comments.


	22. 22 - Sigurd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and... welcome to my vision of Sigurd. This is going to be more snippet-y than Eivor's fuller chapters at times. 
> 
> This is my creative ledge, on which I stand and attempt to explain Sigurd's side of things. Some of it is simply switched perspective from Eivor chapters, and some of it is unique to Siggy. If you are here it is likely because you also feel Ubi did his character dirty. It is currently a WIP but I will try to post a chapter every other day. Sigurd... uh, has a bad time later on. I'm sure we are all aware, but it does get dark and I apologize. As always, thank you for reading. <3  
> ______________________________________________________________________________

_He is five winters. Already, he is too tall to be held by his mother. She groans that he is heavy as a bag of stones, and shoos him when he clings to her. He sits in his father’s chair at the head of the longhouse instead, eating sweetbread and watching his father and the others prepare for their journey. Someday, he tells himself, this throne will be mine. And all the land that surrounds it. I will be a great king, like father. Wise and just, with an arm of stone. I will grow to be so tall the clouds shall be my crown, and the sea the lining of my boots. This he knows, and is sure of. His fate is fixed, and the gods smile upon him._

_“Where are we going, father?” He asks when Styrbjorn comes to fetch him, lifting him from his perch with ease. There is no one stronger than King Styrbjorn, with his broad shoulders and arms like the branches of a great tree. Styrbjorn smiles, and it makes the beads in his beard clink together. I shall have a great beard, too, Sigurd decides. One so long it brushes against my knees._

_“We go to visit friends, and celebrate the birth of their daughter. There will be feasting and drinking, music and stories. You will enjoy it.”_

_“I want to stay here,” he answers petulantly. “Knut said tomorrow we would climb the cliffs, to find the falcon’s nest there. I want their eggs.”_

_“Son,” Styrbjorn says, and his smile is no less wide. “There will come a time when you might have all you wish for, far beyond falcon’s eggs. But today we go to Heillboer, and honor our friends there.”_

_He wraps his powerful arms about Sigurd, squeezing him reassuringly, and Sigurd throws his arms about his father’s neck and allows himself to be carried. Perhaps it will not be so bad. He enjoys the longboat, and the motion of the sea beneath it. He likes to stand at the prow, and imagine he is a great vikingr sailing to distant shores. Perhaps someday he will travel, and see all the world, and bring back so much treasure his father will be pressed to find a place to keep it. He thinks of how his father and mother’s faces will look each time he returns with glorious tales and buckets of silver, and he smiles against Styrbjorn’s shoulder._

_His mother pulls a fur mantle tightly about him, before pinching his ruddied cheeks and taking her place amidst the oarsmen. He climbs through them, steadying himself on the lowered mast, and joins his father at the prow. The day is bright and clear, and as the sail is raised and the oars dip in the water like the long beaks of water birds, he closes his eyes and sticks out his tongue, tasting the salt of the sea and the frigid air._

_They dock at Heillboer, and Varin comes to meet them. He likes Varin. Varin is like his father, great and bearded with arms like banded iron... Though he is certain Styrbjorn is taller, and thicker, and far wiser and courageous. This he tells himself, but does not tell the man who claps his father’s shoulder and grins widely. They are old friends, Varin and Styrbjorn. He knows in the old days they once fought side by side, and that there is no bond more sure than one forged in battle. They speak of it often enough, growing louder as they drain horns of mead, and he listens with rapture and envy at the stories of their exploits._

_Once they are settled, and their gifts have been set carefully aside for the feast, his mother’s hand on his shoulder tells him it is time. They walk the long hall, his father on his left and his mother on his right, until they reach a room. It is a fine room, large and lavishly decorated. The room of Varin and Rosta. Rosta is abed, clad in a linen tunic and her hair neatly braided. The furs are pulled up to her belly, and in her arms she cradles a small bundle. She brightens upon seeing her guests, turning the bundle so they might see the baby swaddled within._

_“Go on, Sigurd,” his mother tells him with gentle fingers pressing at his back. “Say hello to the newest Raven.”_

_He steps forward, eyes wide and cautious. Rosta nods reassuringly at him, and he stops at the edge of the bed._

_“Her name is Eivor,” Rosta informs him. He studies the baby nestled in within the fur, then raises his eyes to meet Rosta’s._

_“She is very small and very wrinkly,” he proclaims. “And very ugly.”_

_His mother bursts into laughter behind him, and when he turns to look at his parents, he sees Styrbjorn hiding a smile._

_“All children look this way in the beginning,” Styrbjorn says. “You were once very small and very ugly as well. Someday, that very small and very wrinkly and very ugly baby will grow to be as big as you. And she will perhaps be your greatest friend.”_

_He eyes little Eivor dubiously. “She will never be as tall as me, or as strong as me. How are we to be friends?”_

_Rosta extends her hand, taking his chin in gentle fingers. “The greatest friendships and truest loves are between people who are both the same, and different. Look at your own father and mother. Though your father is like a great oak tree and your mother a willow, they are equal in ferocity and their affection for each other. Where one might be weak at times, the other’s strength renews them. You will see this in time, little one.”_

_He focuses on the baby, and to his surprise she opens her eyes and meets his gaze. Her eyes are the deep blue of an ocean’s bottom, framed by long and downy lashes._

_“Hej, Eivor,” he tells her in his most grown-up voice. “I am Sigurd, and if we are to be friends… Then I will protect you, as you protect me. That is my oath.” The last words are solemn, echoes of words he has heard his father speak many times. Words that bind with their truth and honor._

  
  


He has never been one to question himself or the nature of his fate. He knows he is fated for great things, has always known it. He is the son of a king, and as sure as the sun will rise and the sea will swell with rain, so too will he one day rule this land of stony fangs and glittering frost. There is a surety in all he does, and he has always slept the peaceful sleep of a man who wants for nothing. All that he desires can be taken, or shall be given.

Nothing, save for one thing. He cannot sleep this night, as he cannot many nights, for no matter how he tosses and turns and angrily rakes fingers through his hair, he cannot erase the image from his mind. It is of Eivor. Eivor, her tunic clinging to damp skin and her tangled braids still dripping with water from the spring. He can still feel her hand on his chest where she shoved him; can still see the sunset of color across her wind-chapped cheeks. Her eyes, like two pale moons in a fire-flushed sky, staring back at him with a spark of knowing within them. _She feels this, too,_ he remembers thinking. _Something has changed between us, and she senses it just as I have._ In that moment, she stopped being the child who shadowed his footsteps. The girl with a bird’s nest for hair and a temper to rival the heat of Gunnar’s forge. Clarity finds him, as sudden and clear as the sky after wind clearing fog.

And now he questions everything. He is sworn to another, and has given his oath. There are few greater dishonors than being a break-faith, but he cannot help but entertain the thought. Night after night he dreams of her, and it is always the same dream. Her hand placed over his heart, her eyes - frigid pools ringed with frost - locked on his. She is beautiful and wild, as the land that birthed her… and as unyielding as the stone in its rocky soil. He leans into her hand, but it is as pointless as trying to heft a mountain upon his shoulders. There is no moving it, this… divide between them. She is no longer the bold and clumsy child he has always known, but more. Far more, and he didn’t see it until now. Now, when it is far too late to entertain such a thing. But entertain it he does, and when he cannot bear it for another second he takes to the sea. If he stays, he must make a choice. Change everything, or change nothing. Break his oath, or remain silent and allow his fate to unravel as it will. He is ready for neither.

He has never been one to question himself, but he does so now, as Fornburg dwindles on the horizon. The figure on the docks dwindles with it, until he can no longer see the golden braids whipping in the cruel wind or the eyes that beg him not to leave again. He has left many times, but of all of them… this is the most difficult leaving he has ever done.

-

He knows her moods as well as his own, and Eivor’s mood is dark indeed as the wedding feast unfolds around them. He hates that he is here, now. That he has at last allowed himself to be lashed to this life that was decided for him. Randvi is pleasing enough. She seems to be light of heart, and kind in spirit. She is hardly ugly, with her long copper hair and sea-storm eyes. He has only met her once before, when the negotiations between his father and hers were first made. That was two winter ago, and she is little better than a stranger to him still. A stranger he is now bound to, whatever his thoughts on it.

There was a time he would not have minded this. It is his duty as a king’s son. Strengthen the clan with alliances, see his kingdom grow and prosper, and one day leave it to a son as iron-willed and forthright as he. There was a time he might have been content, even - for despite his reluctance to admit when Styrbjorn is right, Ranvdi is a more than reasonable match. Their marriage has brought a long and drawn out conflict to its end, and there is something to be said for the peace. Kjotve tests their strength and resolve enough, without their needing to battle smaller clans as well.

The din of the feast becomes too much for him, and the mead in his belly and the shouting and stomping of his Ravens pounds at his head like the great throbbing notes of a drum. He excuses himself and rises, making his way through the longhouse to his room. He will splash some water on his face, shake the shadows from his mind, and then return. The feast will continue for hours, and when it ends… he will commit himself to the woman he now calls wife. This is the way of it, now. The loss of what might have been is not one easily missed, for it aches within him like a poorly healed battle-wound. 

He is on his way back to rejoin the feast when she turns the corner and tumbles into him headlong. She is mead-spun, though her eyes sharpen perceptively when she looks up to meet his gaze. He laughs with surprise, startled by her sudden appearance. He knows what this is. She is retreating from the feast. Eivor is a solitary creature, far preferring solitude and the company of her raven to that of other drengr. He expected she would attempt to slip out soon, for he could see the ill temper brewing in her eyes as she drained horn after horn of mead. Even now, fierce of temper and drunk as she is, she is breathtaking. Another bit of his heart crumbles as he looks at her, and he covers it with false merriment.

“Eivor, sneaking away early again?” He teases. “For shame. And during a celebration in my honor.”

And suddenly, she is wary of him. She averts her eyes, turning away from him. It is a mannerism she has never taken with him before, and he finds it surprising and quite unlike his little drengr.

“I have grown weary,” she answers. “Let them be drunken fools until sunrise without me.”

She is hiding something from him, and he would see what it is. He extends his hand, lifting her chin with unyielding fingers. Her reluctant eyes meet his, and he can see turmoil churning within them. An agitated sea, frothing before a storm.

“Eivor,” he says in a voice as somber as he can muster, “This is a wedding. Tell me, why do you look as though you are attending a thrall’s funeral?”

She shrugs, the movement an attempt to dislodge him, but his fingers are iron and he does not let her escape. She licks her lips, a nervous gesture.

“I am only tired. It has been a long day and the mead makes my eyes heavy.”

“It would appear it is your heart that is heavy.” He gentles his voice, but gives her chin a soft shake. She looks to him as a rabbit might look in a snare. Frightened of what is before her, trembling, even… but resolved to her fate and too tired to struggle further. 

“You should go, brother. You have a bride to take to bed soon.”

The words are almost cold. There is a distance carried with them. It troubles him greatly, and when she attempts once more to shrug him off and move past him, he grips her arm and brings her to a halt. She is strong, but he is stronger - and there is no real fight in her as he pulls her around to him and presses her back to the longhouse wall. He means only to get to the heart of the matter, to see her confession wrought from her, but the movement changes something. The reaction in her is immediate and unconscious, and she has never been much good at hiding her emotions. Her pupils dilate, color floods her cheeks, and coals burn in her eyes when he forces her to meet his gaze. She trembles beneath his grip, only slightly, but he can feel it. It is the trembling of the earth, when hoofbeats approach. Of thatch shuddering beneath strong winds, or distant drums resounding in one’s blood. 

“Eivor,” he says, and he softens his tone though his hands remain hardened to her. _“Please._ Do not hide from me. Tell me what troubles you so.”

Her breath hitches in her throat, and through his grip on her he can feel her pulse racing. A rabbit in a snare, indeed. And he is the wolf, intent on swallowing her whole. He is suddenly aware of her lips, slightly parted to make way for her shallow and rapid breaths. Of his proximity to her, and his knee just touching the insides of her thighs. All this, he feels and sees - and in her eyes he sees a mirror to his own desire. The yearning that has spanned this past year, scorching his dreams with its heat and stoking the embers in his belly. Embers that she, and only she, has ever set alight.

_“Evior.”_ To his own ears, his voice is a stranger’s. Soft as silk, gentle and entirely unlike him. Not the voice of a king’s son. Not the voice of a vikingr who has sailed the seas and seen countless lands and kingdoms. It is the voice of a man long-tormented by love, by longing. Again, he takes her chin in his fingers. He waits for resistance, for her to turn away from him once more, and if she does he will allow it. He will let her avert her gaze and there will be no more of this. She allows him this small thing, and offers no resistance when he angles her face away from his. He examines the knotted skin on the right side of her neck, where the wolf’s jaws marked her. A terrible injury that nearly killed her, but even at nine winters she was strong and fierce enough to bury an axe in the beast before it could finish her. _The heart of a warrior,_ he thinks. _Though not without gentleness to temper it._

“Wolf-Kissed,” he murmurs to himself. Then he lifts her face back to his, his grip as resolute as ever. “Eivor the _Wolf-Kissed,_ but I wonder… Have any kissed you since the wolf did?” 

And this is the truth of it, for over the last year he has wondered this very thing a thousand times as he lay in the belly of his longboat and stared up at the blanket of stars overhead. Sleepless nights, in which his only comfort could be found with closing his eyes and remembering the way her hand felt upon his chest.

He smiles softly at the memory of it, of her, and runs his thumb over her lower lip. Lips that he has imagined countless times, parted and quivering slightly as they do now. He presses, and just as in his dreams they part further beneath the pressure. The edges of her teeth gleam white, and her eyes are unblinking as they observe his face. They are questioning. Asking. _What do you mean to do with me?_ She is frozen in place, and he can hear her breaths stuttering in her lungs. She trembles like a leaf caught in the wind, and he can feel it through his fingers and against his knee where it touches her thighs. He could groan, for the burden of his wanting, but he contains himself. 

He makes his choice, and it is one he realizes now it is one he has always meant to make. His oath will no longer be iron-clad, and he might be a break-faith… but he cannot bed the woman who awaits him in the feast hall, for it is the woman before him he wants. There are no others before her.

He lowers his hand, removing his demanding fingers from her chin. It is one final offer. _Turn away, or cast adrift with me forever._ She does not turn away, and so he lowers his head and kisses her. She yields beneath the pressure of his mouth, lips parting at the urging of his tongue. He closes the distance between them, his body molding to hers and pinioning her to the wall beneath his weight. She tastes of honey and smells like wildflowers and cold mountain winds, and his own heart flutters like raven’s wings beneath his breastbone. Her fingers curl about his cloak, twisting in the fabric as their kiss deepens. To Helheim with alliances and his arranged marriage. He will cast out to distant shores if need be, and see the world scattered with bone and ash if that is the cost of this. He kisses her until the roar in his ears matches the frantic drumbeat beneath his fingertips, where he holds her. He would take her here, now, if he could - and the thought of her opening herself to him, of her hands upon his shoulders and his hands upon her hips as their bodies twine - maddens him. It nearly shatters him into a hundred broken shards of man.

But he forces himself to pull away, and though it takes the strength to rival that of Thor himself, he manages it. She is staring up at him with mingled horror and desire in her eyes, her chest heaving with the duress of it.

“Eivor?” 

He is asking her if she will join him. Asking her to walk beside him on the path to ruin he has chosen. All she need do is say the word, and he will march into the feast hall and declare his marriage void, and that will be the end. Styrbjorn can find other machinations to occupy his time. There will only be her, for as long as she will have him.

She clears her throat, and clouds pass over her eyes, blocking his sun from view. “Not bad,” she tells him in a voice that is harsh and indifferent. “But hardly the first, sweet Sigurd. Now let me go, for I am tired.”

He laughs, then. And though the note is merry and she must think him amused, it is the laugh of a man whose heart has been mortally punctured. She does not want him. Not as he wants her. The knowledge is hard-won and bitter to the taste. He takes a step away from her, allowing the divide between them to return.

“Goodnight, Eivor the Wolf-Kissed,” he says as he turns towards the feast hall once more. 

When he lies with Randvi that night, he snuffs out every candle. He would prefer the cloak of darkness this night. In the darkness, he can pretend that the stiff and formal affair before him is something more, something else. _Someone_ else. It is these thoughts alone that spurr his body to respond where his heart cannot, and he would hate himself for it if he were anyone less than Sigurd Styrbjornsson, son of kings.


	23. Chapter 23

_ “Sigurd, may I have your last sweetbread?” _

_ In typical fashion, Eivor is asking only after her fingers have begun to close about the plump pastry. She is bold and greedy. Two of his favorite things about her, though he will never admit it to her. It would only encourage her. He swats at her hand, smirking at the fire that immediately leaps to her eyes. _

_ “No, I need it. I’m still hungry. I am far larger than you and must eat more than the seed you peck at, skinny bird.” _

_ Eivor screws up her face. “All you do is eat, Sigurd. You’re going to get fat, just like Helgi’s pigs.” She follows this statement with kissing noises, and though the joke is lost on Rosta, Sigurd feels himself blushing from the tips of his ears to the ends of his toes. _

_ He growls at her, baring his teeth in a mock-snarl. “I’m going to cut off your braids and give them to the magpies roosting by the stable. You’ve already got a nest atop your head. There will be little work for them.” _

_ Rosta interrupts their bickering, looking up from repairing one of Varin’s tunics. “Sigurd. Your father tells me you have a love-pledge with Sefa?” _

_ He grimaces. “No, not anymore. She called me a whale-face, and I spit on her foot. Those are not the words a lover should use.” _

_ Rosta manages to hide a smile, but only just. She has far more restraint than her headstrong daughter. “Does Sefa know you have severed your bond with her?” _

_ He nods, and again swats at Eivor’s reaching hand. “She does. I told her to find another drengr. Then she cried. I do not know why. Sadness can be so silly.” _

_ Eivor glowers at him, nursing her reddened hand. “Your meanness will haunt you one day, Sigurd,” she complains. When he caves and nudges the sweetbread towards her, she relents, her eyes gleaming at the prize. She amends her harsh words with, “But **I** would never betray you.” _

_ He reaches one long arm out and pinches her little pointed nose, narrowly escaping her lightning-quick retaliation strike. “That is because we are friends,” he tells her. “In love, hurt is different from that of friendship. Lovers must betray one another, as the sun rises and sets.” _

He wakes from his dream of the memory, rubbing at his eyes. Ah, but they must. The words he spoke then were true as they are today. And he knows it in his heart, for each time he returns to Fornburg he would do so in the time it takes one to draw a breath. If Eivor would _allow_ it. Since their kiss and her dismissal of him, he has thought of little else. He leaves over and over again, and it is for two reasons. Firstly, to avoid the mournful eyes of his unfortunate wife. And for the second, to avoid gazing upon something he cannot have. He would be angry, were it anyone else denying him what he desired. But because it is Eivor, and he loves her more than anyone, he forces the bitterness down. There is no place for it in his heart. Whether they are lovers or friends, he holds only the deepest fondness for her.

It would be easier to bear if she did not flit through his thoughts like a golden bird, always at the edges of his eyes and his dreams. Two winters have passed since they shared a kiss. Two long winters, during which he has spent most of his time traveling to distant shores, raiding and trading and seeking the unknown. On the long nights at sea, when he and his drengr lie in the belly of the longship and gaze up at the stars through clouds of frosted breath, he wonders if Eivor is also looking at them. If she is lying atop the stable roof as she so often does, looking up at the stars and thinking of him. He tells himself this must be so, for it is the only way he can bear it. He is a man unused to wanting and being unwanted in turn. Though he was sure of her returned affection at the time, the years since have left him uneasy. She has grown closer to Randvi, and further from him. She keeps him at arm’s length, as one might hold a dog at bay with an opened hand and stony words.

Perhaps it is all in his head, he thinks. And perhaps she is not gazing up at the stars as he is, but sleeping in the warm bed of another man. It is a thought that needles him, pricking at his skin like an icy wind, and he feels something like anger churning in his belly. It is like the disquieted sea at the beginning of a storm. It is…  _ jealousy, _ he realizes. It is not something he has ever felt before. The world has always been something he might pluck what he wants from. Gods, but she is undoing him. He is a man who envies no one, but until this moment… he has never feared something might be taken from him. Something he would rather die than lose.

Women have offered themselves to him at every port, their eyes roaming over his great height and strong arms and the heavy greatsword upon his back. In their faces he sees only what they are not. They are not  _ her,  _ and so he declines their offers and watches their eyes darken with disappointment. He wants only Eivor, and if he cannot have her then he shall have none. He tried, in the beginning of his marriage. Truly he did. But Randvi is no more Eivor than a bird is a wolf, and so their marriage bed remains cold and inhospitable. They sleep with their backs to each other when he is home, and on the occasions she attempts to reach him - fingers delicately resting on his arm, or edging closer to him - he moves away from her as a horse shies from sudden movement. To allow her to touch him when his heart is so preoccupied would be shameful. More shameful, he knows, is the fact that he would cast his wife aside without so much as a moment of hesitation were Eivor to change her mind. He is beyond caring. He would accept the consequences with joy in his heart.

She is away when his ship docks once more, no doubt gone to nip at Kjiotve’s heels as she does with increasing fury. Only Randvi is there at the dock to greet him, and he meets her with an absent-minded kiss to each cheek. It is all he can offer, and though he masks his disappointment with cheer and boasts of his exploits and gathered treasures, the feast hall feels as empty as a tomb. The absence of his heart’s fire is conspicuously pressing. He stays up long after the others have gone to bed, and finds he has no desire to lie abed with his wife, spine stiff and his eyes forced closed. He takes his leave of the longhouse, walking through the silent village. He climbs onto the thatched roof of the stable, and a smile curls his lips as he takes note of the hollow where someone has lain on many nights. He places his hand flat in the worn place, then looks up at the stars.

“So, you miss me as I miss you, little drengr,” he murmurs. Hope, a flame rekindled, burns in his heart.

  
  


-

  
  


Fornburg is in sight, and he waits at the prow with an eagerness that is only for one drengr. Married though he might be, his mind and his heart are fixed on the Wolf-Kissed one. Eivor, damn his eyes, is the only one reason he finds it in himself to return from each voyage. It is certainly not this cold and desolate shore, or his soft-willed and reluctant father. It is not Randvi, who he has not touched in years and cannot bring himself to love. No matter how far he sails, or how long he stays away, he must always return here - for even if their bond is not the nature he wishes for, he cannot leave Eivor for long.

It is here, aboard his longship and just stepping onto the docks, that the vision first comes to him. The sea disappears from beneath him, and the craggy stones framing the bit of sky above him fade away into fog and shadow. He finds he is standing in a field of flowers, red as blood spilled upon snow. They stand tall, these flowers - soft and velvet petals brushing against his legs as he walks amongst them. He stares down in fascination, and though he is in this vision he is also walking the well-worn path to the longhouse. A path he has trod many times in his life, though he has never seen these flowers. Members of his clan greet him, speak with him, and though he hears them and answers, his mind is elsewhere. As though he has been pulled into another’s dream, and cannot wake from it.

He sees Eivor in the distance, then, and she raises her hands in greeting. He calls to her, wonderment and joy blooming within him, and she begins to run. It is a strange twilight, this - for even as he sees her amidst this strange sea of crimson petals, she is also stretched out before the hearth before him - chin resting on her chest and an empty cup before her. He crouches, lifting her in his arms just as he lifts the Eivor in his vision. She laughs, and it is a laugh that is unhindered. Free and joyous. A laugh he has not heard in several winters. Both Eivors settle into one, burying their faces in the curve of his neck, breathing the scent of him in with loud appreciation.

_ “Sigurd,” _ she murmurs in both realms.  _ “I missed you terribly.” _

Her breath is hot against his neck, and it is that more than the weight of her that threatens to stagger him as he carries her across both the longhouse and the undulating tide of flowers. Gods, but he has longed to hear her speak his name like this. To hold her as tightly as he is now, and feel her lips brush against his skin.

“I missed you, too, little raven feeder.”

She nuzzles his neck, then, and curls of heat travel through his blood like mead heated with foreign spices. Her nose is cold, and it feels like a frost brand against the warmth of his neck.

_ “ You smell like the golden fields of Valhalla itself.”  _ She winds her hands in his hair, then, and he very nearly drops her for the effect she is having on him.

“Perhaps I have been to Valhalla,” he answers her. And though he does not want it to, the field of flowers is fading away with each beat of his heart. “And found it wanting, without you by my side.” 

This strange waking vision is slipping through his fingers, and so he crushes her to him as tightly as his arms allow, that he might forever remember what it felt like to do so. It is a mistake, for even as he returns to the waking world, she remains trapped in the haze of her vision. Her lips press to his neck, and the tip of her tongue darts out, tasting the salt on his skin. He is standing in the doorway of her room now, and considers allowing himself to stumble and fall. Perhaps he will make it to the bed. Perhaps he will not. Gods, but she is unraveling him like a poorly woven tapestry. He cannot accept this gift, for it is not one wittingly given.

“Eivor,” he says more firmly, shaking her gently. “You forget yourself. Wake up.”

She awakes with a startled gasp, recoiling in his embrace as she realizes her lips are still pressed to his throat. He can’t help it. He chuckles at her bewilderment, even as he is bewildered himself. What strange magic is this? Is it the hand of the gods, toying with him, that he might be humbled? He lowers her carefully to the floor, and she stumbles back until there is space between them once more.

“A good dream, I imagine,” he says, and he grins widely at her. “My only regret is that I have interrupted it.”

She sloughs off his teasing as easily as a water bird shakes the sea from its feathers, shrugging her wide shoulders dismissively. 

“My apologies,” she says in an irreverent tone. “I was dreaming of a tall and handsome drengr with a hammer to rival Thor’s.”

She means to sting him with such words, but they cannot hurt him. For he has seen that which her dreams are made of, and there is no vikingr in her heart but him.

“A hammer, eh?” He cocks an eyebrow at her, folding his arms over his chest. “Well, if you go right back to sleep, perhaps you can resume your dream of hammering.”

He can see her swallow, the great lump of restraint traveling down the length of her throat. He can’t stop grinning. He sees, now, that she is as consumed by him as he is with her. There is relief to be found in it.  _ Not bad,  _ indeed.

“When did you return?” She puts a hand to her head gingerly and sits on the edge of her bed.

He spreads his hands. “Only a few moments ago. I expected a welcoming party, but it would seem my welcoming party started the celebration without me.”

“I did not expect you to be back today,” she shrugs. “Else I’d have saved some mead for you.”

“Yes, I heard you likely drank all of our stores.” He leans against the doorway, observing her with more serious eyes. “Randvi told me of Kjotve’s slipping the knife once more. I am sorry. Now that I am back, we will seek him out together.”

“Are you staying, then?” She lifts her head to look at him, and he does not miss the hope that flares in her eyes. Hope, and some small resentment. “Or will you leave before the moon wanes again?”

“I will stay long enough,” he answers, and straightens. “Come and find me in the morning, if you can bear the sunlight.”

“I am glad to see you, brother,” she says before he can leave. The words are softer. Apologetic. “Truly, I am. Tomorrow will be better.”

“Goodnight, Eivor,” he answers.

He returns to his room, and when he is alone and none might see or hear him, he slams his fist down upon his bed until the ache in his abused hand at last overrides the desperation he feels. He has lived a life of taking what he wants. Of everything he desired being offered to him. It is maddening, to want her like this and be unable to seize upon it.  _ Maddening. _

He stays for a full month. It is longer than he would normally allow himself to stay, for each day spent on this shore is a day he must dwell in twilight. Neither day nor night. Neither Randvi’s husband nor Eivor’s lover. He joins her in raiding, and though Kjotve slips their net as Loki slipped the net of the gods in the form of a salmon, there is some small joy in their time together. She has turned into a ferocious drengr in all the time he has spent abroad. He would never admit it, but as he watches her spin and dance, twin blades flashing in the smoke-shadowed sunlight, he thinks perhaps her strength might rival his own. Were they facing each other on the field of battle, he isn’t sure he would walk away the victor. Rather than finding this unsettling, it stokes the fire in his heart. A fire that was once a burning twig and is now a roaring bonfire dedicated in her name.

He wants to corner her. To squeeze the truth from her as he would water from a sodden garment. She is unaware of the true nature of her dream, and he can tell by her puzzlement under his scrutiny that she doesn't know what he has seen. She does not know he has delved into her dreamscape and seen himself there. The discovery both amuses and intrigues him, and he vows to himself when they are done razing Kjotve’s camps to the ground he will have his answer from her. He wants to hear the confession from her own lips, and with it, the admission that she wants this. That she wants him. He will take her hunting, he decides. The two of them riding out into the frozen hills of Norway, just as they once did so often. She will speak to him, when there are none to hear her truth save the glittering snow and his own ears. He is sure of it.

Even as he wishes it, even as he dreams of such words from her, he knows they will not come. For she is as stubborn as a rooted tree, as immovable as an ancient mountain. She is a winter storm, and he a man without so much as a torch. She is rigid and honorable and unbending, and for this - and for so many other reasons - he wants her and loves her and aches for her. He would bend his head and bow his knee to her, would she only accept his fealty. And in the face of such hope and impending disappointment, he resolves to leave this place once more. There is only one thing that might change his mind, and he does not expect it to come. He will seek his solace on the long swan-road to stranger shores.


	24. Chapter 24

“If it isn’t Sigurd Styrbjornsson, king of nothing… and Eivor the Mead-Soaked.”

He can tell by the way Eivor’s shoulders are set and the muscle in her jaw is flexing that she knows this man, though she ignores him and instead takes another swig of mead from her drinking horn.

“I’m talking to you, mead-wit,” the man insists. He is staggering drunk, eyes flinty and mean as he stumbles towards them. 

“Who is this skald? A friend of yours, little drengr?” He asks, intrigued.

“An itch upon my arse that demands to be scratched, nothing more.” It comes out as a growl, forced between thinned lips. 

Whoever the strange man is, he’s moments away from meeting Eivor’s fists. Sigurd decides it would be better to sit back and watch. He knows she will not welcome him fighting her battles for her. Besides, he’s had just enough mead that his confidence in stable footing is flagging. He watches the skald stagger closer, until his hands are braced on the far end of their table. The man's breath this thick with mead, his eyes fixed on Eivor.

“Tell me, Mead-Kissed,” the skald slurs, “Did the embrace you most long for ever come?”

Sigurd narrowly saves his horn from tipping as Eivor shoves the table away from her, hard enough to tip the earthen pitcher of mead they have been sharing onto the floor. It crashes to the floor and shatters, mead immediately soaking into the floorboards and the cracks between them. The skald, hit in the thighs by the table, stumbles backwards. Two other drengr catch him, preventing him from falling on his arse.

“Lief,” Eivor snarls, and though she is drunk he knows she is no less fearsome. She stands, rising to her full height with fists clenched. “You were a crawling worm when first we met, and you are a crawling worm now. Let us take you outside, that I might find some nice earth to bury your face in.”

“It’s  _ Liev,”  _ the skald bellows, and then he is rushing at Eivor with his fists raised. She ducks out of the way easily, delivering a hard blow to the man’s lower back. He cries and stumbles, catching hold of a wooden beam and halting his descent. Sigurd lifts his horn once more, taking a long drink of mead. Whatever this skald’s injury, it will not be worse than what Eivor leaves him with this night.

Liev is already turning on her again, and it is clear he is outmatched. Where he is slender, Eivor is sturdy as an oak. He is a man better suited to poetry and song than battling the Wolf-Kissed, and it isn’t until the fourth or fifth slamming of his face against a nearby table that he slumps, defeated, to the floor. Several other drengr, friends of the hapless skald no doubt, join in the fray. By the time Sigurd has finished his mead and is seeking another jug - one not shattered by his little drengr - the fight is done. Eivor looks down at the splayed-out drengr upon the floor and spits, and then casts a reproving eye towards Sigurd.

“Did you intend to sit and drink while I fought the entire alehouse?” She demands.

“O, you did not need my aid, sweet vikingr. I am here to drink, not tangle with your old lovers.”

He was not sure of his guess not until now, but when color floods her cheeks and she looks away shamefacedly, hiding her eyes from him, he is sure of it. _Ah,_ so this Liev is a man with a wounded heart. He finds the realization enjoyable, like sugared berries on his tongue. Cast aside by the Wolf-Kissed, for there is no room in her heart for others. He realizes he is grinning somewhat foolishly, and when Eivor turns back to him she makes a disgusted sound.

“You spilled our mead,” he complains in his most aggrieved tone, raising his empty horn. “And I am thirsty still.”

Eivor walks over to a nearby table, one that has miraculously not been upset by her brawling, and steals the pitcher from before the drengr seated there. None of them move or make complaints, only watching with wide eyes or admiring smiles as she leaves with it. She strides over to Sigurd, raises his hand holding the horn with one of her own, and pours mead until it is once more brimming full. Then she raises the pitcher itself to her lips, and begins to drink straight from it without stopping. He roars with laughter as he watches her, raising his horn in salute to her and shouting  _ SKAL!  _ before joining.

She finishes the pitcher and he his horn, and the alewife brings them more. Someone takes up singing, and before long the alehouse is in an uproar as drengr stomp their feet and pound their fists upon tables. Eivor is laughing and swaying on her feet now, and he is as mead-soaked as she. She leans against him for support and he wraps an arm about her. He presses a fierce kiss to her temple, and she is too soft about the edges to notice or mind the intensity behind it.

When the alewife finally shoos everyone from her tavern, complaining of the late hour, they stumble through the streets arm in arm. They find them to be empty - for it is quite late, and only those still drowning themselves in mead are still awake.

“Sigurd,” she hiccups, pointing. “Look at that beautiful pig. You should... _ hic _ … Kiss it. It’s far lovelier than your…  _ hic... _ first kiss was.”

The aforementioned pig raises its head from rustling through cloudberries before its masters door, as though it has realized they are referring to it. It is a very large pig, a very fat pig, and coated in thick black mud from enthusiastic rolling in the filth at its feet.

“That pig was not my first kiss,” he protests. “You mead-witted bacraut.”

“You do not need to lie to me... _ hic _ … Sigurd,” she chortles. “For as bumbling and beardless as you were, only a pig…  _ hic _ ... would have you.”

She raises her stolen jug of mead to her lips, taking another long draught, and he reaches out and tips the bottom of it higher. Mead sloshes over her face, drenching her, and she sputters and laughs and blinks, wiping at her eyes and cursing his name.

“At least the pigs would have me,” he teases. “For not even a pig would kiss you. You are far too ill of temper. None dare cross your path, Wolf-Kissed.”

“A pig  _ was _ my first kiss,” she retorts, mead clinging to her eyelashes as she narrows her eyes at him. “A big…  _ hic _ … half-witted, fire-haired pig with eyes far too close together.”

He laughs so long and loud at her words that eventually several heads emerge from windows or doorways, threatening blades or arrows or flame if the  _ mead-soaked drengr in the street will not silence their racket.  _ _ He _ was her first kiss. It is a realization that floods him with sudden longing. He manages to reduce himself to chuckling, and when he pulls her tight against him and kisses her, he thinks perhaps this time she will allow it to continue. She is pliant and warm in his arms, her tongue heavy and sweetened by mead. He deepens the kiss, and her hands slide up to rest against his chest. He doesn’t realize he is falling. Not at first. His mead-spun head is slow to respond to sensations, and it isn’t until he is lying on his back in thick, black mud that he realizes what has happened. She  _ shoved him.  _ Into the pig’s  _ pen.  _ Sigurd, son of kings and pigshit.

He starts laughing again, and from her side of the fence, Eivor joins in. Above him, a window opens - and the woman inside the home begins throwing an assortment of root vegetables and cookware at his head. Sigurd scrambles drunkenly to his feet, struggling to shield his head from the assault. Eivor is already running. Or doing her best to, for her feet are fumbling with drink. She trips and lands on her face, and when she rolls over, a rotten turnip catches her between the eyes.

“Run, Sigurd,” she giggles, gasping for breath as she struggles to her feet. “The witch-woman from the root cellar is on our heels!”

“She’ll catch us and--Ow!--string us up for her pet pigs to eat.” He manages to climb back over the low fence without losing his balance again, exclaiming as a small clay pot shatters against the side of his head. They stumble clear of the battlefield, holding on to each other for support and laughing until tears come to their eyes.

They seek mischief yet, in these wee and dark hours... and so they creep down to the docks where Dag and the crew are sleeping, and paint designs on the sleeping drengr’s faces with handfuls of crushed berries and the tips of their fingers. Eivor chooses something special for Dag, and when Sigurd squints in the dark and sees what she has drawn upon his forehead, he nearly bursts into laughter once more.

“That is no  _ rune,”  _ he whispers, to which she grins widely.

“A preening cock for a preening cock,” she snickers. Dag stirs, mumbling something in his sleep, and they flee from the scene - stumbling over each other in their haste.

In the morning, they wake to find themselves sprawled out amongst clucking chickens and hay. They are in the village stable, and a large bay mare eyes them cautiously before returning to lipping at her breakfast. 

“Thor’s hammer, my head is split,” she groans from beside him. He sits up, rubbing at his eyes, and she chuckles.

“You’ve hay in your hair and mantle, brother. Careful, lest someone mistake you for one of the horses.”

“Better than being mistaken for a pig,” he shrugs. He smells like pigshit and horse hair and mead, and when Eivor wrinkles her nose in response to him, he can see it is a scent poorly contained, however dry his clothes might be. His head is aching as surely as hers must be, and he stumbles to his feet. “We’d best return to Fornburg. Empty-handed or not, father will be wondering what we have gotten up to.”

He extends a hand down to her and she takes it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. When she has found her footing again, he reaches out and plucks a white feather from her hair, twirling it between his index finger and thumb.

“I’ve long warned you about the bird’s nest atop your head,” he says severely, “And as I have foretold, the chickens have come to roost.”

“Better a bird’s nest than a pigpen,” she retorts. “Shall we find a well to dunk you in?”

When they return to the boat, Dag is in a fury. They gaze at him with innocent expressions, nodding in agreement and shared horror as he complains loudly and gestures angrily. Eivor’s careful decorations remain, for no amount of scrubbing has been able to remove the stains left by the berry juice. The... _rune.._ _._ is no less visible in the light of day. Eivor is very careful to fold her hands behind her back, and he makes sure his own incriminating digits stay beneath the folds of his cloak. They board the longboat, and all the way home they share furtive glances and sly grins behind Dag’s back. 

He can’t help but love her. She has gripped his heart in her raven’s talons, clutching it as tightly as a shining fish caught mid-leap. She clings to the mast and closes her eyes, glorying in the sea spray and the bitter wind that flings her braids out behind her like so many snakes. The myth of the Grecian Medusa, turning his body to stone with her eyes as bright as a new morning sky. Hope bloomed in his chest at their shared kiss, but the trousers he wears - mud still clinging to them - are an effectively resounding reminder of her  _ no.  _

He grins widely, and she turns as though sensing it. She meets his eyes, returns his grin with one of her own - but she doesn’t know the reason for it. He is smiling, for he is patient. Whatever amount of time spans their sagas before they meet as one, he will wait. 

  
  


When they return from their journey, their feet firm upon the wooden planks of Fornburg once more, she grabs him by the hand and pulls him along the docks.

“Come, brother. I would have one more task for us.”

He sighs, head still mead-split from their long night. Nevertheless he allows her to drag him with her, though he has the strength to easily resist. Tekla folds her arms and frowns as they pass, no doubt sensing further mischief. For all her years amongst the clan, Tekla has been most bruised by Eivor’s clumsy flailing. Her glare could melt a glacier, and it often does - for Eivor’s cheeks heat whenever the woman’s scrutiny is turned upon her. Svend and Tove’s home rises up before them, and Eivor ducks under the cloth over the doorway - allowing it to hit Sigurd in the face. He laughs, attempting to avoid it, but her pull on him is relentless.

“Sigurd, Eivor,” Svend says in greeting, looking up from the designs before him. “What brings you here?”

“We want some new work, Svend. Are you busy?” Evior asks, leaning against Svend’s work table.

“We do?” Sigurd asks, saddened by the loss of her hand in his. The warmth lingers on his skin, a pleasant memory.

“Yes,” she answers firmly. She pulls him aside, speaking in a conspiratorial tone meant only for his ears. “But what will we get? What symbols would best tell our shared sagas?”

He considers her question. “Perhaps you are the sun, and I am a great wolf. For when we meet, we have the power to bring the world to its end.”  _ And I would devour you,  _ he finishes silently,  _ were you to let me catch you. I would see the world burn for only a moment of you.  _

She seems to like his idea, mulling it over before nodding thoughtfully. “Then it shall be be so. You and I, bringers of ragnarok.” And then she grins, and when she looks up at him he can see that she has not forgotten their drunken kiss on the streets of Stavanger. She might pretend to have no memory of it, or blame it on being mead-witted, but she can hide nothing from him. Not he, who has walked the field of bloody flowers and seen the nature of her heart.

She takes her turn first, and he finds his mouth dry and his brow bedewed with sweat at the sight of so much bared skin. Svend seems unaffected, bowed to his task. Slowly but surely, the shape of a runic sun forms in the hollow where hip joins abdomen on her left side. She holds perfectly still, for the pain of a new tattoo is nothing to a drengr who has tasted battle. When it is done, and Svend leans back to examine his work, he makes a pleased sound. She admires the careful work, fingertips brushing over it gently before lacing her breeches once more. She gestures at Sigurd to be seated.

“While there is still light to see by, Sigurd,” she teases him.

She perches atop the table, legs crossed and elbows resting on her knees, that she might have a better view of his suffering. He has several tattoos already, but thinks perhaps this one hurts most - for the tender skin on his right side, in a place mirroring hers, is reluctant to accept Svend’s pigments. There is bone just beneath his skin, and each time he winces or flinches, she pecks at him with hugr-fire.  _ Milk-drinker,  _ she teases.  _ Veslingr. Do not worry. If you grow faint, I will douse you with frigid water from the sea. _

“You are making me regret following you here,” he growls in mock-anger. “Eivor of the stone-skin and frozen heart.”

Something slips in her eyes, giving way just a little. A tender mercy. “You will never regret following me, Sigurd. For I will always lead you home.”


	25. Chapter 25

He has never seen anything like Miklagard. Though almost entirely surrounded by water, what land can be found is fascinating in its variations. There are beaches of fine pebbles and soft golden sand. There are woods, with dense foliage and trees like none he has ever seen before. In other places, there are sparse shrubs and rustling trees that shift beneath the caress of humid winds. The buildings here are ancient towers of stone, laid in pale golds and rich ochre and red clay. The streets are paved with flat stone, shaped and laid carefully, unlike the dirt pathways of his homeland. He walks through the great market, allows his fingers to skim over barrels of strange fruits and nuts. He breathes in the heady scent of roasting meats and sugared figs, of spices that he can almost taste, so thickly do they hang upon the air. He does not speak the language, but silver speaks as well as any tongue might. He presses a coin into a vendor’s hand and receives a small bundle of honey cakes. He eats every single one greedily, absently brushing crumbs from his beard and licking his fingers clean.

There are animals in crates, being bartered over by loud and colorfully clad men and women with dark eyes and bronzed skin. Birds, with dazzling plumage in every hue and pattern. Small pigs and goats and lambs. There are fish, both live and and butchered, and he stands and watches for a moment as a man pulls wiggling slips of ocean silver from a barrel and fillets them on a great wooden block.

The world here is sharp, and hot, and warm in every way that Norway has always been cold. It heats his blood as a fire and mead might on a bitter night, and he revels in the way the sun feels upon his face. He feels alive here. More alive than he has ever felt, though... Even here, even now, his thoughts are of Norway. On waves of a similar gold to the sands of Miklagard, soft and shining, falling like a waterfall down Eivor’s back. As his eyes roam this new horizon, his fingertips are moving of their own accord - stroking the smooth bit of shield-shard held between them. A piece of him and a piece of her, close to his chest. A reminder of his fierce little drengr. He would have brought her with him, if Styrbjorn had not expressly forbidden it. She would like this strange land, and perhaps - in the warmth of the nights here and free from the constraints of Norway, she might seek another sort of warmth at his side. He shakes these thoughts from his head, for they will do him no good. She is not here. She is on the frozen shores of Norway, pursuing Kjotve. 

He browses the various wares laid out on blankets or hanging in makeshift stalls, and wonders what gift Eivor might like. It is part of his homecoming tradition. On each return, he brings her a gift. She is not a woman with an eye for jewels or fine fabrics. She is a drengr, as is he, and her eyes grow keen only for fine weapons and well-made gear. A thought that makes him smile, now, as he runs his fingertips over a bolt of sky-blue velvet. It is the exact color of her eyes, and were she anyone else, he might plead with her to drape it about herself.

The air is stifling here, and though he is more comfortable without his fur mantle about his shoulders, he is unused to such heat. As he reaches up to wipe sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck, he feels eyes upon him. His skin tingles with the sensation, and he turns to see what strange gaze seeks him out. At the edge of the market, leaning against a stone pillar with casual and open ease, stands a man with dark eyes and long hair as black as a crow’s wing. The stranger smiles the barest of smiles and nods his head at Sigurd respectfully, his expression intent and curious. When he returns the smile, the man straightens himself and approaches. He moves with an easy grace, as one who is well familiar with battle and the wielding of a weapon. Sigurd notes he is missing the fourth finger on his hand, and that beneath his hooded cloak he wears leather and steel. A warrior of his land, come to observe this strange invader.

“Forgive me, lord,” the stranger says with a little bow of his head, now close enough to be heard above the din of the market. “But you seem well out of place here. What land do you hail from?”

“You assume I am a lord,” he answers pointedly. “Perhaps I am only a simple traveler, here to buy some cloth.”

“You are as much a simple traveler as I am a shepherd of goats.” The man’s mouth twists into a genuine smile of amusement, and Sigurd cannot help but feel a sense of familiarity. There is an immediate kinship with this stranger, and it sets him at ease.

“I am from a land called Norway,” he assents. “And you are correct in your assessment of me, for my father is a king in my homeland.”

“Few carry themselves with such quiet strength and power, unless they are so born.” Dark eyes gleam knowingly, as though the confirmation was always coming. “I am Basim Ibn Ishaq, and though I do not speak for all… Allow me to welcome you to our city.”

“And I am Sigurd, of the Raven clan.” He extends his hand, and Basim meets it - gripping each other’s forearms in greeting. “Well met, friend.”

_ “Marhabaan ya sadiqi,” _ Basim answers, and the language rolls from his tongue as smoothly as the cadence of a horse’s hoofbeats.  “ What brings you to our warmer shores?” Basim asks, eyeing the bolts of fabric. “A new dress?”

Sigurd laughs. “No, no. Nothing so drab. Today, I seek a gift for my sister. Tomorrow, I seek adventure and new lands, and gold I might sink my teeth into.”

“And is your sister as big and imposing as you are?” Basim queries, eyes ever inquisitive. “A beard to rival yours, perhaps?”

“Gods, no,” Sigurd laughs. “At least, not so large as I. Though perhaps equally imposing. She is unmatched in her battle-craft and hardy spirit.”

“Such a woman deserves a fine weapon,” Basim muses thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “Perhaps I can help you in your search for the perfect gift. But first… Allow me to show you my city. There is much here you will miss, without a proper guide.”

“Treasure?” He asks, deeply intrigued. “Will you show me what secrets and riches your city holds?”

“That, and more. All your dreams made real,” Basim promises. “Things your mind cannot begin to comprehend.”

“Lead the way,” Sigurd decides. He waves a hand, and the two drengr casually tailing him fall away. They will return to the ship to await further instructions, and he is of a mind to explore this city alongside his strange new friend.

-

That night, he dreams what will be the first of many such dreams. He stands before the ornate gates of Valhalla, and they are just as described in the sagas and songs of his people. He opens his mouth and speaks words he should not recognize, but does - and the gates open before him like curtains over an open window. As he walks through the golden field, a thousand voices call his name. Odin, the all-father, greets him as an old friend. Freyja herself bids him feast at their side, and the mead that pours that night is thick and sweet. Sweeter than any he has ever drunk before. He grows giddy upon it, laughing and pounding his fists with each cry of  _ skal  _ from Thor. He walks amongst the Aesir on high, and they know him. They call him friend, brother. He has never felt so welcomed or loved or at peace.

He is taller, stronger, wiser than he has ever been. There is a sense of knowing, as though he somehow understands the seven realms. As though he is the embodiment of every written saga and tale shared over a warm hearth. He cannot help but feel that he is home, and that his life as Sigurd, son of Styrbjorn, is only a dream. But it cannot be, for if that life is a dream… then she is a dream. And if Eivor of the golden hair and stone arm and frost-ringed eyes is a dream, then he does not wish to wake from it. The corpse hall fades from his vision, and then it is gone. He wakes, and finds he is still upon a fine bed laid with silks and gauzy curtains. Curtains that shift in the breeze from the open window - a reminder, a shadow, of the gates of Valhalla before him.

He stands, enjoying the cool evening air against his bared skin. He looks out at the sky, with stars more vivid than anywhere else in Midgard might offer, and wonders whether he will return home soon. If the months he has been away have softened a certain drengr’s heart. As beautiful and strange as this land is, the experience is an empty one. Each day he is adrift is another too long, and he worries he will soon be replaced in a certain drengr’s heart. No, he decides, insides recoiling at the thought. He will sail on to Rome, and Africa, as planned. If she cares for him, if she wants him, then she will be waiting for him as she always has.

-

“There is much more to you than what lies on the surface, my friend.” Basim gazes across the table at him, his voice thoughtful. “I have seen many things in this life, but there is a greatness to your spirit beyond anything I have ever seen before. Tell me, do you have visions? Do your gods speak to you?”

He is surprised by Basim’s perceptiveness. “I have,” he confesses. “But they are often tangled, in ways I cannot make sense of. A seer once told me my destiny lay beyond the shores of my homeland, and that it would be far different from what I thought it to be.”

“And your family, your clan… Do they see this spark in you as well? Do they share your yearning for greatness?”

He laughs, shakes his head. “My father is deluded by dreams of peace and prosperity. He has forgotten the heft of an axe, the taste of blood on the air. He has forgotten what it is to be a Vikingr. He has grown old, and feeble-hearted. We are as different as the sun and moon.”

“Is your sister also touched by the gods?” Basim asks with interest.

“Eivor? No. She is not my sister by blood. My father took her in, after her clan was slain by another’s treacherous hands. She is a drengr, to the heart of her heart and the marrow of her bones. She would rather chase Kjotve the Cruel and seek glory than build an empire on distant shores.”

Basim nods, as though he expected as much. “The way you speak of her, I had a feeling she did not share your bloodline. Forgive me for speaking so, but… You are a man above men. You stand atop a mountain peak, where only one may trod. There is no room for lesser men. Not even those you would consider family.”

“I have often thought I was fated for far greater things than a small kingdom of frozen soil,” he confesses, and despite himself he feels somewhat flattered by Basim’s observations. True, they are sentiments he has often felt himself - but not ones spoken aloud, for his father would think him a fool, and Eivor would call him addle-minded and mead-soaked. 

“Perhaps one day you will build your own kingdom,” Basim offers. “One far from your land or mine.”

“Perhaps,” he agrees. “It is a thought I have considered often. But I belong to my clan, as much as I do to myself. I cannot cast off to strange shores and leave them to my father’s trembling hands.”  _ And I cannot, would never, leave Eivor - though I am not certain she would follow where I lead.  _

“To build a kingdom, one must not let any stand in his way.” Basim’s eyes gleam like obsidian in the low light of the tavern. “Should it come time to spread your wings, be sure none block the air beneath your wings.”

“None would dare,” he laughs. “For all who have stood in my way have come out a head shorter for it.”

Basim smiles with something like approval. “Then you will have your kingdom someday, lord. Of that, I have no doubt.”

He stays in Miklagard for many weeks. There is no end to the city’s wonders, and Basim proves to be a most accommodating host. He and his apprentice, a young man called Hytham, explain the nature of the  _ Hidden Ones  _ to him. He is surprised to learn Kjotve is part of the secret order they hunt, and that Norway is a place they intend to go one day.

“You may travel with me,” he decides one night, as they share spiced wine and sugared dates on a great balcony overlooking the sea. “And once we have sacked Rome and tasted the strange fruits of Africa, we will return to Norway. You will be honored guests, among my clan - and together we will lay siege to Kjotve’s hold. He has carried on for far too long, his grasping fingers encroaching upon my lands. Norway is far too small for a man with such great ambitions. Let us be done with him, together.”

“We accept your invitation,” Basim agrees with a gracious inclination of his head. There is a knowing twinkle in his eyes, and Sigurd has the sudden impression that this was Basim’s plan all along. Who better to lead them to Norway and Kjotve’s gates, than a towering vikingr from the same shores. He watches his new friend carefully, for any sign of deception - but Basim is open and warm and friendly. Surprisingly so, given the nature of his profession. They speak no more of the future, but instead share tales of their past. The spiced wine and perfumed air make Sigurd’s head spin, and as he drifts to sleep upon his fine bed, Basim’s words drift through his thoughts like feathers in a windstorm.

_ You will have your kingdom someday, lord. Of that, I have no doubt. _

-

He nearly kisses her not once, but twice, upon his return. First, when she runs to greet him as he climbs out of the longship. He has dreamed of her a hundred times over the past two winters, and the sight of her - hale and hearty and truly before him - is almost enough to make him forget himself. It is her eyes, widening with alarm as he cradles her face in his hands, that cool the fires of his ardor. She longs for him, he is  _ certain _ she does - but she also does  _ not _ want him, and it is that fact that allows him to still himself and resume the face of a friend and brother. He does not want portions of her, sea-rations meant to keep him alive but only just. He is far too greedy, far too demanding, for anything less than everything.

Later, on the docks, he considers kissing her again. He toys with the idea in his mind as he holds her chin steady in his fingers, inspecting her like a glimmering jewel by candlelight. It reminds him of the first time he kissed her, and of the immediate heat that roared to life between them. Dry tinder, needing only a spark to create a fire so great and vast it might consume everything in its path. He is thinking of the way she looked wielding the hidden blade, and of her lithe and brutal movements as she trained with Basim. The Eivor of the waking world far surpasses the one in his dreams, for she is as fierce and blood-drenched and stalwart a vikingr as he has ever seen. She has changed much in all their time apart, and he is only sorry he was not at her side to watch these changes take place.

She is older, wiser, her skin touched by sun and wind. She is not so quick to temper, though he has no doubt it is from more exacting control rather than withering. The long scar down the left side of her face has healed well, and does not ripple or bunch when he brings a smile to her lips. Her hair is longer still, though remains in the damnable braids.  _ May Hel take the silver bands and cast them into a bosom of fire.  _ Her eyes are the same, though. Same as they ever were - bright, inquisitive, quick to react and poorly adapted to keeping secrets. She gazes up at him calmly and does not twist away, and it is for this - and the fact that she is more powerful and beautiful than she has ever been - that he again considers claiming her mouth with his own.

“The skies of Miklagard are bright and unhindered by clouds or mist, but they are not so blue as the rings of frost the gods gave you for eyes,” he murmurs tenderly. Words that leave him unbidden, but are welcome in their truth. “I think perhaps I missed them the most.”

“Do you mean to write poetry for the skalds to sing, now?” Her eyes are guarded with the delivery of his words, and he can feel her tense through his fingertips.

“Must you always cast me aside so cruelly?” He teases, and allows himself to smile, so that she knows he is not cross with her. Never with her. He will wait for her, for as long as it takes her to recognize their fate is interwoven far beyond this place. They are bound to each other, and though she denies it, it is a bond forged in love as much as any other reason. He is confident in himself. She might be stone, but he is water - and water will always win out.

He releases her from the prison of his fingers, and they turn towards the sea. They speak of Kjotve, and of the glory of the kingdom they will build together. King and queen of the Raven clan, on their rocky shore by the sea. None shall stand in his way. Not with Eivor the Wolf-Kissed at his side.

By night, she comes to him. He knows it is a dream, for her presence is hearkened by the nodding heads of thousands of crimson flowers. The gods have granted his wish, for the bands in her hair are gone and the glorious gilded mane flows over her shoulders like water over river stones. Her eyes are bright as the stars in their moonlit field, her cheeks flushed with wanting as she pulls him to her. He has dreamed of pressing her to him, of kissing her lips until they are swollen with a need as aching as his own, more times than any mortal man might count - but this dream is unlike the others. It is tangible enough that if it were not for the flowers brushing against his knees, he might think it the truth.

Her hands alight on his fevered skin like delicate birds coming to roost, and as she places kisses across his chest and up his neck, the control he has carefully exercised all these years frays and then snaps, a rope held taut for far too long. He is a man half-drowned amidst frothing waves, and she his swan-boat - and he pulls her down with him into the vermillion sea. They twist and spiral in the current of it, gasping for breath and seeking it in each other.

He knows this is a dream, whatever denial his frantic heart tries to hammer out - and there is comfort in knowing that she, too, shares this dreamscape. And so he tells her he loves her in the only way he is allowed, and her sighs and taut muscles and cries from bruised lips crushed to his are all the answer he needs. She needs him, just as one might need water or air, and someday… she will need him enough to cross the threshold they have both set their toes upon.


	26. Chapter 26

He can still feel her lips beneath his, though many moments have passed since she broke away from the kiss. His hands hold her steady, for she trembles beneath him like a bird without feathers.

“Tell me you do not want me, as I want you,” he demands of her. “Tell me your heart does not beat for me as mine does for you. Tell me this, and I will never speak of these feelings again.”

Her eyes shine with tears, though she does not let them fall. Not Eivor, of the stone heart. She never allows them to fall, forever choosing silence over the expression of her own heart. Her next words roar in his ears like a waterfall, swollen with new rain, crashing upon the rocks at his feet. 

“I do not want this. Not when the cost is so great.”

He smiles for her. Not because it is a reflection of what lies in his heart, or because he feels any joy. Again, she has denied him - and it has taken the warmth from his sun and the breath from his body. No, he smiles because she needs him to. Because she cannot give what he asks of her, and he knows it destroys her as surely as it is destroying him. He smiles even though he has just lost everything. His birthright. His dreams of a kingdom.  _ Eivor. _ Her heart is breaking apart before him, as an ice floe thawing in summer’s reluctant heat, and so he smiles... that she might be made somewhat whole where he has been truly broken, and know she has not lost  _ him.  _ He can bear the burden of this loss, for his life has been full of many good things; whereas hers has been a long road of grief and anger, and a thirst for vengeance that would bend a lesser woman. She has lost enough, and she will not lose him. No matter the personal cost.

“Then from this day, you will have peace.” The words tear and claw at him, the paws of a bear raking great wounds in his spirit. “We will be Sigurd and Eivor, family and nothing more, as the Nornir have woven it to be. But I will not love you any less. Know that.”

She is as elusive as a bird who will not alight on land, as always. She returns his smile, through the sheen of sorrow glazing her eyes.

“Let us return to Forburg," she says. "There has been enough anger and pain for a lifetime in these few hours. We have an exodus to prepare.”

“That we do,” he agrees.

They talk of their plans on the journey home, and those who would observe them might see only the Sigurd and Eivor of old. Talking, laughing, dreaming of glory and sagas to rival the greatest of vikingr. Boasting of their prowess, and of the battles to come. And when they set foot on Fornburg’s shore again, and begin putting their plan into motion - it is hard to be distraught, for there is a gleam in her eyes that matches that in his own. As they load crates onto the longships and make offerings to the gods for safe travels, he begins to grin, and she with him. They hoped to leave before Styrbjorn’s return. Sigurd would be done with this place, and his heart is closed to his father. To be so betrayed, and before all the jarls who would see it, is a shame that has deeply scored his heart. His birthright has been stolen, and so he would see his father’s own joy stolen. They are not so fortunate, for on the day they mean to set sail, a longship bearing Harald's colors arrives.

“Styrbjorn,” Eivor tells him, her hand on his arm. “He’s here.”

“Then let us face the spineless graybeard,” he growls. “If he wants a farewell, then he shall have one.”

They stand side by side, waiting, as Styrbjorn climbs from his ship and approaches. His sharp eyes have not missed the preparations. Crates awaiting to be lifted, the other members of the clan who would join them loading supplies and belongings into the wide bellies of the longboats.

“Sigurd, what is this assembly? What are you planning?” his father, a king no longer, demands. His brow darkens with concern as he views the crates at Sigurd’s feet.

“An exit, father.” He keeps his voice controlled, though fury burns bright in his chest. “As graceful as I can. For if I cannot be king in the land of my birth, I will start a new saga. In England.”

“Nonsense.” Styrbjorn shakes his head dismissively. “Your place is here, son. At my side. There will be other victories soon, other glories.”

“My choice is made, father. Do not hope otherwise.”

“Styrbjorn Jarl!” Two men approach at a run, stopping breathlessly before Styrbjorn. “Our men were killed as we patrolled nearby. And the word is… Eivor swung the axe.”

Sigurd turns slowly to Eivor, raising an eyebrow at her in query. Only now does he notice the blood matting the fur of her mantle, staining her bracers and hauberk. A smirk twitches at her lips, and he almost laughs.

“If the dead could speak,” the warrior continues, rounding on Eivor. “What would they say of their deaths, Wolf-Kissed?”

Eivor places her hands on her hips, and the gleam in her eye stirs warmth in his breast. His little drengr. His stone-armed, fire-tempered love. Gods, but she is something to behold.

“They would tell you how they offered us insults,” she replies. “And how I slew them for it.”

The warrior folds his arms. “As the dead cannot defend themselves, a weregeld is wanted. Fifty weight of silver for each life. By law.”

“Fifty weight?” He demands, stunned at the amount. Small wonder Harald is so prosperous, if that is the price of his men.

“You will have it from me,” Styrbjorn interrupts. “A parent must pay the price of his children’s folly.”

“He is no child,” Eivor retorts, fury flashing in her eyes. He could kiss her in this moment.

“Why England?” Styrbjorn demands of her. “Why throw away all you have for such an uncertain future? Here, you could be a king’s hero, Eivor. Your name, known all across Harald’s many kingdoms.”

She lifts her chin, meets his father’s eyes with two frozen pools filled with disdain. “We will not be captive to another man’s gaudy design. I stand with Sigurd. As you should have, before you lost your sense of honor and reason.”

“She speaks for both of us, father,” he agrees. “You gambled your honor, and you lost your family. I hope the trade was worth it.”

Styrbjorn sighs, bowing his head in defeat. “Anger and sadness wrestle for my heart, but I am glad you’ll leave this place alive. No father should be made to bury his children.”

He takes a long look at the man who gave him life, and feels only anger. Anger, so consuming it burns away anything else that once was. He turns away from him, as he turns away from the shores that were once his home. He lifts the crate at his feet, straightens his spine, and walks the length of the dock without another glance back. There can be no going back. Only moving forward.

  
  


_ You will have your kingdom someday, lord. Of that, I have no doubt. _

-

  
  


High up on the longhouse, he watches Eivor as she hammers new shingles in place. She is as deft with tools as she is with an axe, and even from where he stands he can see the sweat gleam on her sun-tempered skin. He has never seen her shine so brightly as she has these past weeks, with England stretching out before them. Wild, untamed, rich and waiting for the taking. There is color to her cheeks, and her hair grows lighter as the sun’s gentle fingers weave sunbeams into the lengths of it. She senses his eyes on her, and her sudden inattention to the task at hand results in the hammer coming down on a finger. He watches as she curses, sucking the finger somewhat resentfully before grinning down at him. It is a wide grin, a grin she gifts only to him, and it fills him with a burst of warmth and light. His heart will forever swell in his breast at the sight of her. It is as involuntary as the rolling of the tides.

Basim joins him, though to him the scene atop the longhouse is of little import. They have shared many words since landing upon these shores, and grown much closer over their shared interests and discussions of visions.

“Your people look to her as they do you,” Basim observes, dark eyes unreadable as he watches Eivor resume her work.

“They do, for she is the focus for my fire. We rule will together, here. As we have always done. England will be ours.”

Basim makes a sound in his throat. Disapproval, perhaps. “It would seem there is room at your mountain’s peak for more than one set of feet, then,” he muses.

“She would never attempt to wrest it from me,” he answers. “She is steadfast and honor-bound. She is my most trusted friend, and all that remains for family.”

“I hope you are right, lord” Basim answers. “For trust is a blade we must all fall on, in time.”

Basim’s words needle him, and he shakes them from him like bits of spider’s silk in a doorway. “Let us speak of other things, Basim. I do not wish to speak of this further.”

-

That night, he dreams of ruin. 

The earth shakes beneath him, and high overhead the rafters of the great hall creak and groan as a man in pain. He looks across the great table at those he knows as friends, and sees fear and apprehension in their eyes. The earth shudders again, and stones loosen from their mortar and planks shift and splinter. It is the end of all things, and he knows this as surely as he knows these people who surround him. Fenris has caught the sun, and all that follows cannot be unwritten. The earthen bowl held in his fingers feels fragile as an eggshell, and he fears it might crack it with each tremble of the ground beneath him. Within it, the liquid glimmers and shines like liquid silver catching moonlight.  _ Drink,  _ a voice commands.  _ And when it is done, we will meet our fate. _

_ Yes,  _ he responds, as do the others, their voices varying in pitch but not in fealty.  _ I will fight… as a thresher through a field of wheat. _

He wakes to a still-darkened room. Randvi sleeps on, unaware of his turmoil. He sits at the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands, before rising and walking silently through the longhouse. He is not alone in his unrest, for Eivor is seated at the feast table. She is staring into a tankard of mead, lost in dark thoughts of her own. She lifts her head when his movement catches her eye, and there is a sudden strangeness to her. Her eyes are unfamiliar for the barest of moments, the eyes of a stranger... and then she is herself again, centering on him, an easy smile touching her lips. She looks pointedly as his bare torso, then at his bare feet and the deerskin leggings he wears. Her gaze lingers a moment too long, and he hides his own smile. Whatever her words on the hill over Alrekstad, he is sure little has changed in her heart. It gladdens him even as it greatly pains him.

“Do your dreams trouble you as well?” She asks, grabbing another tankard and pouring it to the brim with mead. He takes it gratefully, seating himself across from her. The table is narrow enough and his legs long enough that their knees touch, and neither shift away from the contact.

He considers her question, and finds himself reluctant to share what he has seen. She will think him mad, or a fool, for dreaming such things. For dreaming of a world and existence greater than he. Perhaps Basim is right, and some things are best kept close to the heart. Where his hugr is often set on the horizon, hers is as her feet - planted solidly on the ground beneath her, stalwart and resolute. He is not sure he understands these dreams himself, though Basim insists the gods must surely speak through him.

“I am only hungry,” he tells her instead. “My stomach rumbled and grumbled like Scrimir's terrible snoring, waking me from my sleep. I could ignore it no longer.”

It is perhaps the first time he has ever kept a secret from her, and though her eyes remain guileless and she does not know what he has done, guilt strikes him in the chest like a spearpoint.

“Oafish ox,” she chuckles. She slides a cloth parcel towards him, and he sees she has been enjoying honey cakes in the dead of night. Honey cakes, perhaps the only thing she loves more than he.

“There is no man or woman alive who might love cake more than you, little drengr,” he laughs. He lifts one of the cakes, bites into it, and finds it sweet and crumbling. It melts on his tongue, and the flavor is exquisite. He finds it comforting, being here. Sharing cakes with her as their knees touch beneath the table.

“Only one,” she scolds, withdrawing the rest. “I had to give Yanli three wolf’s pelts for these.”

“And is it dreams that trouble you as well, o sleepless one?” He asks, ignoring her abject greed. “Shall I look under your bed for trolls, as I once did?”

“Bacraut,” she mutters, seizing another cake. “There were no trolls under my bed. Only you, with fingers like ice upon my legs.”

“You nearly broke my nose with that vicious kick,” he says with a sniff. “You were a measly ten winters, with spindly little limbs… But gods, did you have a kick to rival a stallion.”

“What a scourge you were.” Her voice has a dreamlike quality, as she remembers his various pranks. “But for all your testing and jests, you loved me dearly.”

“That I did, and do,” he answers. “Though with each winter you only grow more cross and fire-tempered. I liked you best when you were but a gosling, pecking at my ankles.”

She laughs, lifting her tankard and draining what remains of it. He watches her drink, observing the motions of her throat as she swallows and the rivulet of mead that escapes the corner of her mouth, tracing its way over her cheek before following the strong line of her jaw. He would pull her across this table, if she would only allow it, and catch the drop before it fell with his tongue. He only remains still, a man-shaped statue of stone, and the moment passes. She lowers her tankard and he raises his own.

“Skal,” he says, with merriment in his voice that he does not feel. She pours herself another drink, then raises her own.

_ “Skal,” _ she echoes. “To wealth and glory beyond our wildest dreams.”

They drink until it is difficult to stand, and though he offers her a helping hand, she insists on stumbling back to her new room alone. He laughs as he watches her cling to pillars for support in her drunkenness, and once she is gone from his sight he returns to his own bed. A bed that is cold and empty, despite the sleeping form of his wife within it. 

He dreams of Eivor, as he often does - though this time it is a solitary dream and not one shared amidst crimson petals. It is a dream where he relives every touch, every stolen kiss, every moment where he saw the truth of her heart shining from her eyes. It is a dream of yearning and of hope, for he does not believe he has lost her. Not truly. Water will overcome stone. It only needs time.

  
  
  
  



	27. Chapter 27

“And where do you ride off to, my friend?” His words are for Basim, though he is preoccupied by the sight of Eivor stroking the neck of an enormous black stallion being led by Rowan. He likes the way her lips curve in delight. He likes the joy in her face. He would see it more often.

“I seek knowledge,” Basim answers, his horse fidgeting beneath him impatiently. “This land is full of relics that might lead us to the truth of your heritage. I mean to seek them out, that we might confirm what we already know. I would invite you to join me, were you not so determined to make war alongside new friends.”

His lips twitch. “To build a kingdom, I must first have an army. The mountaintop is a long climb, elsewise.” 

“Indeed.” Basim’s gaze travels to alight on Eivor, who is lost in her wonderment and oblivious to the conversation at hand. “And your stone-armed emissary has been making great strides, I hear. Soma of Grantebridge is loyal to her, now. She will answer, should Eivor call for aid.”

“Loyal to  _ us,”  _ he corrects his friend. “An ally to my clan.”

“It is as you say, I am sure.” Basim dips his head in agreement. “She would never raise her axe without your word. This, I know. And will you take her with you, to meet these Ragnarssons?”

He finds himself somewhat rankled by Basim’s words. They have come to England for  _ him. _ Because he is their jarl, and will lead them to glory beyond imagining. Without his vision, these shores would remain empty - populated only by bandits and birds. They would still be back in Fornburg, gutting fish and scraping for silver. Drinking mead that has lost its taste and braiding Harald’s fine hair, alongside his useless father. Not even Eivor would have thought to come to England without his urging, without the tug of their bond to secure her conviction.

“No,” he says, and it is a decision spurred by the moment, for until now he planned to ride out with her alongside him. “She may continue her dalliance with Soma’s clan. I will ride to meet with the Ragnarssons myself, and when she has concluded her business she may join me.”

Eivor lifts her head in the distance, as though sensing his sudden ire. She meets his gaze, and he feels a stab of guilt at his sudden doubt of her.

“A wise decision, and honorable.” Basim lowers his voice as Hytham approaches. “The Ragnarssons will respect you for presenting yourself first, as the _true_ leader of your clan. The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok would expect nothing less.”

“Basim, are you leaving so soon?” Hytham interrupts.

“I will return in time,” Basim answers his apprentice. “I have matters to attend to elsewhere. You will remain, and watch over our new friends in my stead.”

“We have only just arrived…” Hytham protests, then falls silent at a stern look from his mentor. He folds his arms, his displeasure clear.

Eivor seems to sense something is afoot, and Sigurd watches as she turns from the shining black horse to vault over the fence and stride towards them. There is a determined purpose in her gait, and he is sure she means to stop him from leaving without her. He cannot help but smile at the determined set of her shoulders.

Basim nudges his horse forward, passing Eivor on her walk to Sigurd’s side. No doubt he does not wish to be in the midst of the storm brewing within her. Sigurd isn’t sure he wishes to be, either - but she surprises him, as she visibly dampens the heat of her mood and rests one of her hands on the shoulder of his horse.

“Where are you going, brother? A new grand adventure?” She asks, and as she looks up at him he is transfixed by the way the morning light blanches her lashes to the palest of gold, and the way her frosted eyes are made luminous by it. He nearly reconsiders his words, for he would rather pull her up into the saddle behind him and strike out across the countryside together. Perhaps with her arms wrapped about him, her cheek resting upon his back. They would explore this land arm in arm, as he often dreams of. But words poison his thoughts, still. Words that cause a shadow of doubt, however small, to darken his heart.

_ ...as the true leader of your clan. _

“I am off to meet with Ubba and Ivarr Ragnarsson, north of Repton,” He answers. “They mean to make a man king. Join me there, when you have concluded your business with Soma in Grantebridge. No doubt your axe will come in handy.”

She looks as though she might protest, and argue his words. He is spared by Dag. Loyal, relentless Dag - who places himself between Eivor and Sigurd like a jealous lover. He orders Dag remain behind, and to obey her words as if they were his own. Resignation takes hold of her, then. He sees it in the slump of her shoulders and the wariness in her eyes as she looks towards Dag. She is not pleased by his decision to leave, but will not question him in front of another clansman. He relents, then - just a little. Perhaps he was foolish to push her from his side so readily, whatever Basim’s thoughts.

“I will see you soon, little drengr,” he tells her with a wink. “Do not delay too long.”

-

For too long, he has been bound by duty. There is an immense freedom to the open road before him. He has never enjoyed the obligations of being a jarl. He hates sitting upon the great chair and listening to idle complaints, or pushing pieces about a board. He would rather be aboard a ship, sailing to distant shores and adventure… or as he is now, hoofbeats beneath him and a heavy sword upon his back. He was not born to shuffle about a longhouse as his father, but to be a warrior king. In this, he feels most like the Ragnarssons. They do not sit idle and make gentle promises of peace. They are steel and fire and bloodied blades, doing that which Saxons seem ill-made for.

He often leaves the road on his journey, eager to ride through the true offerings before him. He wends his way through the great forests, thicker and higher than any he has ever seen, and marvels at the warmth of the air and the dense foliage at his horse’s feet. He gallops through fields of purple wildflowers that bend and sway beneath the urging of the wind. Ruby-breasted birds twitter at him from branches, alarmed by the presence of the large vikingr who would wade through their kingdom so clumsily. He stops beside a lake, and in a moment of nearly boyish enthusiasm, he removes his boots and wades through the mud and reeds, relishing the sensation of it. When was the last time he stopped to enjoy such things? When exactly did boyhood fall away, replaced by the man he is now?

  
  


_ “Catch me a fish, Sigurd.” Eivor stands at the edge of the dock, peering into the murky water below. _

_ He ignores her demand, choosing instead to skip another stone across the water’s surface. She is fifteen winters, no longer a child, but her voice is no less petulant. “I do not fish. I am a vikingr, and do not have the patience to sit and wait for a fish to grow hungry. If you want a fish, catch it yourself.” _

_ She sticks her tongue out at him. “You only say that because you are terrible at fishing. You always make excuses when it is something you are bad at. Sigurd Styrbjornsson, afraid of his own shadow and little fish.” _

_ “Very well,” he says in a much more agreeable tone. “I will go a-fishing. But first, I must bait my hook.” And with that, he shoves her off the dock and watches her tip headlong into the water, arms flailing. She is sputtering and furious when she surfaces again, and she thrashes her arms before sinking out of sight. _

_ “Eivor?” He finds himself suddenly concerned. She can swim, he is sure of it. But perhaps she has caught on something in the deep water. A root, or water-vine. There is no answer, save for a handful of bubbles breaking the surface. “Eivor!” He cries again. No bubbles answer him this time. He leaps into the water, panic rising in his chest just as the bubbles rose to the water’s surface. He finds the water is not so deep as he thought, and his toes balance on the muddy bottom. His chin is just above water, and he reaches out with his long arms, seeking his lost sister. _

_ She bursts forth from the emerald-green depths, wet braids and errant strands plastered to her skull and face like seaweed hanging from oars. He sees only the wicked grin on her face before her hands are atop his head, and she is dunking him thoroughly in the lakewater. He means to yell at her, to shout his outrage and indignance, but his mouth fills with cloudy water instead. When she allows him to surface, and once he is done spitting out the taste of mud-churned water, he can only laugh. She is still grinning widely, and there are bits of leaves and reed and waterbird down clinging to her head and shoulders. _

_ “You look like a sea-witch,” he gasps. _

_ “A sea-witch who means to drown you,” she threatens. _

_ He spends the next few minutes evading her grasping hands, and the rest of the afternoon trying to prove to her that his prowess in fishing is as great as his war-craft. The gods curse him with a slack line, and Eivor wears a pleased smirk the entire ride home. _

  
  


He passes through towns, often pulling his hood low lest he alarm the tender Saxons who gape at him like fish thrashing about in the belly of a boat. He stops at alehouses, flashing handfuls of silver in exchange for food and drink and a bed to rest in. Sometimes he drinks alone, whereas other times wandering Danes or curious Saxons might join him beside the hearth. The further from Ravensthorpe his horse takes him, the greater his sense of freedom. Let Randvi and Eivor entertain talks of peace and politics. They are better suited to it, and he craves only the singing of blades and to be battle-drunk once more.

He knows when he is close to Repton, for the lands here show the signs and scars of bloody occupation. Saxon soldiers litter the roads and fields, their withering flesh a feast for the crows that gather. Smoke rises from burning hamlets, and the wind tastes of copper and rot. He welcomes the air into his lungs, savors the story of battle yet clinging to it. There will be more, much more, as he and the Ragnarssons bend all of Mercia - and then the whole of England - to their will. Who better to rule, than Ragnar’s mighty sons and himself - a man touched by the gods.

_ You are special,  _ Basim once told him, on the long journey to Norway.  _ There is a wisdom to you beyond your years lived. I believe the gods speak through you, akhi, and that they have great plans for you. We will learn your true purpose, together.  _

The words resonate with him even now, for he has long felt them in his heart. No matter what small moments of contentment he has felt in life, there has always been something within him that whispered of more. More, beyond the shores of his homeland and the too-small crown to be handed to him. As though all else is illusory, or temporary. A sense of purpose, confirmed by Valka’s own words.

_ Your destiny lies beyond these shores, and it is not the one you dream of. _

And in the same breath and thought, the rest of her words harry him like biting flies.  _ A day will come when your friends are your enemies, and your enemies are your friends _

_ Even Eivor?  _ He wonders to himself now, as his horse’s hooves set down on the furrowed and muddy streets of Repton.  _ Is she to be my enemy, rather than my lover? _

-

He has learned over the years of sharing dreams, however unwittingly on Eivor’s part, that her dreamscape reflects whatever emotions stir beneath her breast. It is something he appreciates, since she is often reluctant at best when it comes to sharing true feelings. Here, amidst the sea of red petals, he is allowed to glimpse the truth of all things. He feels himself pulled into her dreams now, and though his mind is a hundred leagues elsewhere, he cannot resist the draw of it. She pulls at him with her unconscious mind, arms of stone hauling upon his ship’s tether until it comes to shore.

Scattered petals crush and crumple beneath his bare feet as he treads the land of dreams once again. He stares up into the sky, and there is no sun to warm his face. There is a great hole in its sky-cradle, and the wind that blows brings the hint of smoke and sorrow with it. It stirs the petals at his feet, and stems stripped of their crimson crowns brush against his legs pleadingly. He is troubled by this, wondering at the dark thoughts in his little drengr’s mind that might so disturb their shared place. She has brought him here out of desperate need, and it is clear the need goes beyond that of flesh or loneliness. She is afraid of something, and with that fear ragnarok blooms in lieu of flowers.

He hears her approaching, but does not turn. His eyes are fixed on the sky, and troubled thoughts of his own stir in his breast. Fingers, rough and calloused but still tender, interlace with his. He responds reflexively, squeezing her hand tightly. It is then he turns to her, and her eyes are wide and bright as moons. In the strange light that is both darkness and somehow blinding in its brilliance, her hair is a deep burnished gold. It flows over her shoulders like honey-waves bathed in firelight. She is clad in a silken gown, spun from moonlight itself. The wind blusters about them, and it clings to her like a second skin. She is the woman he has always known, and yet she is different. A stranger, from distant shores no longboat might reach. She is also beautiful in her solemnity, in a way she has never been - and the sight of her fills him with a terrible ache. Her eyes seek solace, or some assurance, and he has none to offer her. The world will burn. That is the meaning of what he sees.

“It is Ragnarok,” he says, his eyes returning to the sky with great reluctance. “Fenrir has swallowed the sun. It is the beginning and the end of all things.”

Her answer comes as a beseeching whisper, nearly lost to the wind. “I am not ready. We have only just begun to write our saga.”

He turns to her, spanning her waist with his wide hands. Beneath them, her skin is as hot as a fever’s flush to the touch. The fire in his breast that burns only for her flares hot and bright, reaching skyward with great hearth-tongues that lick at him. She shivers, either from cold or her own sudden desire, and the gown does little to hide her response in either regard. The sun is forgotten, the blowing wind and scattered petals a distant memory. There is only her, as luminous and bright as the moon itself. 

“Let the nine realms burn,” he answers her. “For without you, I would see it all turn to ash.”

_Let it all burn,_ he thinks. _For_ _I will swing my sword, and England will either fall to its knees or be severed at its neck. The gods will it to be so._

She kisses him, and though he feels her lips on his, the warmth cannot reach him. He only sees the ring of sun-shadow in the sky, hears the voices calling to him to rise up and fight one final time.

Hands frame his face, gentle as ever no matter how many winters they have been made to wield sword and axe. Hands that draw him back to the wind-battered flowers and the woman clad in moonlight.

“Some back to me, Sigurd Styrbjornsson. Don’t go. Stay here, with me.”

She kisses him again, and there is no surrender in the strong fingers that hold him still or the demands of the mouth pressed to his. He hesitates, a man whose toes only just touch the edge of a fathomless sea, and then… he steps away from the foaming waters, and his boots find sand beneath them once more. He lets her capture him, lets her pull him back to her. He is filled with a terrible need; the tentative gnaw of hunger growing to a roar in his belly that will not be quieted for anything save a feast. He pulls her to him, hands glorying in the silken lengths of her hair as he claims her mouth. She trembles in his arms, a wild thing gentled and tempered by her own need, and his grip in her hair tightens. He thinks of the longhouse, and of the droplet of mead he so longed to steal from her graceful neck. He imagines it is there now, as he pulls her head back and tastes her heated skin. She moans softly, fingers scrambling for purchase at his waist.

This is not real, he knows. It is only another dream. But it is the first time since Alrekstad that she has yielded her heart to him like this, and he is nearly lost in it. He aches for the wanting of her, and she goes willingly with him to the bed of scattered petals. Sweat bejewels her skin, glittering like diamonds, and her cheeks are as bright as the lingering sky-fire above them. Petals cling to her, and he considers jealously removing them one at a time before replacing their claim to her with a kiss of his own. But no, he is too far gone to afford such patience. There is nothing barring their way, now. Nothing but the silken gown that shreds beneath his hands like spider’s silk over a doorway. She is gasping for air, chest heaving, her eyes burning brighter than Gunnar’s forge. She pulls at him, lips forming half-pleas and supplications.  _ Please, Sigurd. Please. I need you. _

He nearly folds beneath the weight of her hands upon his shoulders. Nearly, but not quite - for he has not forgotten his oath to her, and he would have her release him from it before he takes what has always belonged to him. He places a hand on her belly, palm flat and fingers spread wide. From some faraway place he marvels as the slope and plane of it, and the way the muscles coil beneath his touch. Gods, but she is a marvel. A goddess of battle and blood, the song of her beating within him like so many raven’s wings. He presses her into the earth, pushes her away until words return to his tongue, and he may remember himself once more.

“You told me this cannot be.”

She shakes her head, the haze of desire clouding her eyes. Her words are nearly slurred for her wanting. “This is a dream. Anything can be.”

She does not want him. Not truly. Not even now, though she pleads with him to take her and writhes beneath him as a serpent beneath the sea. She would live in a world of dreams, and endure the torment of waking day… All for the sake of honor. To preserve a marriage that has all the life and vitality of a waterlogged corpse. He loves her, gods, but he loves her… And in the face of such love he will not settle for mere portions of her. He would crumble in the face of such consuming hunger, however strong he may be.

“No,” he says, and sudden fury darkens his words. “I want more than dreams, Eivor. Dreams cannot sustain me any more than they might sustain you.”

He wrenches himself from her dreamscape, and it is like pulling an axe from a wound. It is equally painful, to be so torn apart - for when he wakes in the tent the Ragnarssons have provided, his hugr and his heart and his body are aching in the way a fever brings. Sick and chilled and throbbing, snaking through his blood like the low and bone-rattling notes of a battle horn.

  
  
  



	28. Chapter 28

_ He is standing waist-deep in a lake as golden as mead. The water is warm to the touch; the surface steaming as hearts-blood fresh upon snow. The lake is fringed by high trees, skeletal and white as though carved from ice. They remind him of sun-bleached antlers. He shivers, despite the water lapping at him. This place is cold in its emptiness, and he is wary. He joins cupped hands, allowing the gilded water to pool within them, and inspects it. There is a buoyancy to the liquid, as though it were meant to suspend rather than flow. _

_ “It is the water of memory,” a voice says. _

_ Startled, he allows the water to escape between his fingers. A woman stands on the near shore. She is slender and beautiful, with sharp eyes that see all. Her flaxen hair is restrained by many golden strands, and she wears a long red gown that both drags on the ground at her feet and does not touch it. A cloak of falcon feathers graces her delicate shoulders. He is not sure how, but he sees her and she is known to him. She is Freyja, goddess of love and beauty and war. A sense of familiarity, his body’s unconscious greeting of an old friend, rises within him. _

_ “How did I come to be here?” He asks, allowing his hands to fall to his sides and submerge in the strange waters. _

_ “You have brought yourself here,” she answers. Her voice comes to him as though from somewhere far off, and through waterlogged ears. “For it is nearly time for you to awaken.” _

_ “Awaken?” He echoes, and something nips at him. The bite of an insect upon his neck. He slaps reflexively at it, and when he pulls his hand away there is blood but no trespasser smeared upon his fingers. _

_ “Drink the waters of memory,” Freyja urges. “And return to us, justice-bringer. Drink, and you would know all.” _

_ He looks down at the gentle ripples radiating from about his body, disturbing an otherwise mirror-smooth surface. He is overcome by an urge to drink. A surety that he would find all he has ever longed for or missed in these soothing waters. A hand, pushing at the place between his shoulders. Demanding, beckoning. He can almost taste the water, and knows if he were to drink it would be sweet and cool upon his tongue. He has tasted it before, though he cannot say when or how. He has never dreamed of such things as this. He casts his eyes skyward, and all thoughts of the lake of memory flee his mind. The sky is empty, save for a great black hole where the sun once slept. _

_ “Look only to your memories,” Freyja insists, and there is a note of distress in her voice. “For what has been matters far more than what is, or will be.” _

_ Again, the invisible hand pushes at his shoulders. He allows one hand to curl, forming a cup once more. _

_ “Yes,” Freyja breathes. _

_ “Sigurd?”  _

_ The voice breaks the stillness, snapping his indecision like a brittle twig. He knows that voice. It is one from other dreams, other memories. A form takes shape across the lake, and even from this great distance he would recognize her anywhere. _

_ “Sigurd?” Eivor calls again, and as she calls his name the surface of the lake ripples and shudders, as though a sea-storm churns it with two great arms thrust to the bottom. _

_ “No,” Freyja cries. “You must drink. Do this, and all you desire, all that you long for most, will be granted to you.” _

_ “All I desire?” He asks, and he is torn as a man cleft by a mighty sword. What does he desire? Glory, beyond his most expansive dreams? A kingdom that stretches to the edges of Midgard? To step out from the shadow of his father’s treachery, and make a name for himself that will be on the lips of skalds for thousands of winters? A saga that will know no rivals for its greatness? _

_ Or… her. The woman at the edge of the lake, who stands hesitant and afraid to touch the water of memory.  _

_ “No,” he says with finality. “We will drink together, she and I… for I want nothing I cannot share with her.” _

_ He turns away from Freyja, her despairing cry falling upon stone ears, and begins to wade through the strange waters. They pull at him, the luminous fluid growing thick and unyielding, binding his legs as mud sucks at his feet. It is as though this lake is aware, and would see him trapped here forever.  _

_ “She will never drink,” Freyja warns him, her distorted voice growing more difficult to hear as he presses on. “And her willfulness and glory-chasing will cost you everything. Your glory, your birthright, your knowledge.” _

_ “I have already lost my birthright,” he answers through gritted teeth, straining against the waters that bind. “It was stolen from me, by a coward with a wilted spine.” _

_ “I do not speak of your mortal father.” It is little more than the whisper of wind, now. “A man so far beneath you he might be river stones, where you are the thunderclouds themselves. You are begat of gods, Sigurd… and it is to them these waters will carry you. You need only drink.” _

_ He stops, then, and as soon as his resistance abates so, too, do the waters. They grow liquid and pliant once more, an unconcerned dog curled at his feet.  _

_ “Sigurd,” Eivor calls again, and he finds sudden resentment in his heart. What has brought her here? Did she come to seek out the waters for herself? Does she mean to take from him what has already been stolen once? Does Freyja speak true in this strange vision? _

_ The waters begin to ebb, marked by the cool air against damp skin newly revealed. He looks down, watching as inch by inch the lake dwindles. It is as though the waters are being soaked into drought-parched ground. Indecision clouds his mind. On the far shore, Eivor searches for him but cannot see. At his back, Freyja lets out a long and despairing cry, as though she has been struck a terrible blow. He cannot move forward, nor can he return to the goddess - for his feet are mired and will not free themselves. _

_ “I cannot make this offer again,” Freyja wails. “For the raven-feeder is a wall I do not have the strength to climb. You will only rise to your true destiny when you shake yourself free of your mortal fetters.” _

_ And then she is gone, and the golden lake is no more. He stands in the center of an empty lake bed, watching mud harden about his boots like stone. Just as the mud, he feels his heart harden. He has lost something here. A precious thing that will not be returned. Taken from him, by someone he trusted. _

_You are a man above men,_ _a voice whispers,_ _a rustling wind over cracked mud. You stand atop a mountain peak, where only one may trod. There is no room for lesser men. Not even those you would consider family._

Come morning, he shares his strange vision with Basim. Basim, who has seemingly boundless insight into such mysteries. His friend listens with dark and knowing eyes, nodding thoughtfully or holding his chin between thumb and index finger, as he is wont to do in moments that require his wisdom.

“The meaning of this is clear,” he says at last, when Sigurd has spent all his words. “You are, as I suspected, a man descended from gods. They reach out to you when your mind is at peace and set adrift, for it is only in those moments we are able to hear them.”

“And the lake?” He asks, still greatly troubled.

“It is the mead of poetry,” Basim confirms what he already knows to be true, though he needs to hear it from another. “Had you drunk it, you would have the knowledge and wisdom of all things. That was what Freyja wished to give you. A most precious gift. Tell me, friend… Why did you not drink?”

“I…” and he hesitates, unsure if he wishes to divulge the turmoil in his breast. “I wanted to share it. I wanted Eivor and I to be joined in that knowledge, that together we might reach a great and shining destiny.”

“I have warned you of this very thing.” Basim’s eyes grow melancholy, as though mourning what Sigurd has cost himself. “Odin did not share the mead of poetry with the other Aesir. He took it for himself, for to share it would diminish his power. If you are to be lord over all of England, you must be as Odin was. Share nothing, for diluted mead will not heat your belly nor set your mind afire.”

“Yes,” he bows his head in assent. He feels ashamed, for his squandering of such a great gift. “It is as you say, of course.”

“Love can be our greatest strength,” Basim continues. “But it can also weaken us beyond all reason, or drive us to great madness. Do not lose sight of what matters, Sigurd, and do not bend your knee to any before you. Do not repeat the mistakes of your father.”

Anger flares in his chest, the heat of it staggering. 

“I am no fool,” he snaps. “And I will not walk a single step in the footfalls of my father, king of nothing.”

Basim does not flinch from the words, only inclines his head respectfully. “I seek only to counsel you, my friend. Not invoke your ire.”

“Forgive me,” Sigurd relents. “I am… not myself. These visions and prophecies plague me night after night, and I grow weary of them. Let us speak no more on this. Tell me again of this woman we seek. The one called Fulke. Perhaps this stone of hers holds the key to the knowledge I have so carelessly lost.”

“If there is anything that might shake loose what lies dormant in you, it is the Saga stone,” Basim agrees. “I am sure of it.”

  
  


-

Gods, but he is hungry. So hungry the biting edge of it may kill him. Not hungry for food, for that has lost its taste and appeal. He is hungry for far greater things. To be so close to realizing his true destiny, and yet so far. None of this will matter, when it is his time. Eadwyn and Geadric’s petty squabbling is little more than humming insects in his ear, and he would have long since swatted them away if not for Geadric holding the key to finding Fulke. No matter that he is touched by the gods, and carries their blessings upon his wide shoulders as a mantle. The world does not see him for what he is, and for what he will be - and so they block his path and pull him in a hundred directions. He is frustrated, but he will be patient. It has been a week since he bid Eivor join him, and with each passing hour he grows increasingly frustrated by her slow response. Does she mean to busy herself elsewhere, only showing when his beard has turned gray and his skin spotted with age?

“She surprises me,” Basim says, watching Sigurd pace while cleaning and inspecting his hidden blade. “I thought her to be loyal to you and her clan, yet she leaves us to wait while she answers Geadric’s beckoning.”

“She is loyal,” he retorts, though doubt clouds his words. Has she not always vowed to be at his side, always? Why does she abandon him now, on the cusp of his destiny? “There are none more steadfast than Eivor. She will join us soon. I am sure of it.”

“Of course,” Basim answers smoothly. He tests his blade, nodding in satisfaction at the well-oiled mechanism’s functioning. “Her reluctance is one born of ignorance. She cannot begin to understand what you and I have discovered. You are wise to keep such knowledge from her, until we have the stone in hand.”

It is not until that evening, when the sun begins to wilt in the sky and the sunlight dappling their campsite takes on an amber hue, that she steps out of of the encircling trees. She is so quiet he wonders if she has not deliberately approached with stealth, perhaps hoping to hear words not meant for her ears. She looks tired and weary, more careworn than he would expect. Troubled thoughts shadow her eyes. He stands to greet her, and does not miss the way her gaze shifts to Basim first, wary in its scrutiny. Whatever her misgivings and the weight of Basim’s words upon his shoulders, his heart is yet gladdened to see her. He outstretches a hand to touch her, reconsiders it, and withdraws.

“You’ve timed things well,” he tells her. “The holy woman Fulke is nearby.”

“Imprisoned at the Saint Albanes monastary,” Basim adds, standing to flank him. “Just around the bend.”

“This is our moment, Eivor. After this, everything changes.” He says these words, and aches with the desire to say more. To spill his secrets to the one he loves best. To tell her everything he knows, and might still see. But not yet. Not until the time is right. 

She folds her arms, and her gaze is tempered by concern. “I might be glad for you, if I knew who this woman was and why we needed her.”

He shakes his head impatiently. “I have explained enough. Now is the time for action.”

“You’ve done nothing of the sort,” she snaps, and her eyes harden to him. It is like watching a frost ring form and expand across the surface of a pail of water. Her voice hardens in equal measure, sharper than an axe blade. “Nothing but give me your blind word!”

Fury overtakes him, heating his blood. He looks at her and can only see the woman whose obstinance and refusal to bend has cost him much already. Her presence on the shore of the golden lake denied him his good judgement, and left him standing in a cracked and empty lakebed. 

“I wish to speak to her!” His voice takes on an ugly quality, hard and cracking like stone crashing upon stone. “Me, your jarl! That alone is reason enough!”

Behind him, Basim makes an approving sound low in his throat. She does not hear it. She is staring at him as though they are two strangers who have never met until this moment.

“Why?” She demands, pressing further. “So she might cast a spell and turn Eadwyn into an eel?” 

He wills himself to soften. He regrets the harshness of the words, and the sting of them now reflected in her eyes.

“Fulke is not the only advantage we seek here, Eivor,” and his tone is almost cajoling, now.  _ If only you could see the greater picture. I would paint it upon the sky if I could, so you might look and wonder.  _ “There will be treasure in Saint Albanes. More than we can count. It will benefit our clan greatly in the days ahead.”

The frost does not thaw. “You can steal all the silver and gold you want. But if there are no more farmers in the field to hire, it is useless metal. Good for little else than to break your teeth upon.”

“Men from all across Mercia would heed the call to fight a woman pledged to Wessex,” Basim offers. 

Heat rises to her cheeks, a flush of color that speaks of her anger. “Be silent, sly-tongue. My words are for my brother alone.”

He turns to Basim, giving him a dismissive look. Basim nods, bowing his head and withdrawing. When he is far enough away, Sigurd turns back to Eivor. Perhaps she will listen now, with the subject of her distrust standing amongst the trees and out of earshot.

“Eivor,” he says, and his tone is both gentle and unyielding. The strength of steel, concealed by soft furs. “There was a time when you would follow me without question, because we trusted one another. Because you knew I would never lead you into folly. Never wager our lives before I knew the cost. Is there something that holds you back from embracing me as you once did?”

There is such hurt and shame and betrayal in her face, written in the depths of her eyes and the fine lines that now crease the corners of her mouth, that he almost loses his conviction. He is flooded with guilt at the effect his words have had on her, but tempers it with resolve. He  _ must _ succeed, here… and without her, he cannot. Something crumbles in her, like ancient stone beneath the hooves of a warhorse. Dust beneath his boots. He hardens himself to it. He cannot let this chance at destiny slip from him once more. She  _ must _ bend to him. When she speaks, it is with a voice as taut as a bowstring on the verge of snapping. Her eyes shine too brightly, the glimmer in them speaking of the sorrow she cannot - will not - share.

“Sigurd, you know I would never betray your… Your trust in me. I’ll fight with you. But there must be limits to our chase. Geadric is counting on us.”

“Of course he is,” he acknowledges. “And soon we will deliver. Come.”

She follows him, and it is with the slope of shoulder and lowered head of a horse that has been beaten. He feels as though he has broken something. Something that might not be mended again. He would feel the sting of loss, were it not for the all-consuming though that pecks at him relentlessly.

_ You will only rise to your true destiny when you shake yourself free of your mortal fetters. _


	29. Chapter 29

There is a bitter taste in his mouth he cannot shake. It is the tongue-shadows of words spoken in anger. Words he regrets even as he feels conviction in them. He refuses to turn back, to look at the dejected form standing beside the holy woman Fulke amidst the ruins. To look back would be to admit his words had no purchase. To concede defeat, and wilt before the heat of her own fire. 

“You were right to question her,” Basim says by way of comfort. “For her temper is nearly our undoing. We cannot afford to waste all these months of careful planning, or allow them to be swayed from their course.”

“I do not require assurances, Basim. I know what I must do, and my mind is fixed. Do not meddle in a bond you cannot begin to understand.”

Basim falls silent, unaffected by Sigurd’s anger as always. The man is unflappable, stalwart and stoic. Would that Eivor shared such qualities. If she did, the stone would be in his grasp and not squirreled away amongst the rest of Eadwyn’s treasures. Instead, her honor-addled mind has cost them days, perhaps weeks, for now they must wage war on Cyne Belle castle. The rivers will run red with Saxon blood, and he will see it done - that he might hold the stone in his finds, and delve into his true nature locked within its mysteries.

“We will ride to meet Geadric,” he decides. “And wait for Eivor to grace us with her presence once more.”

Anger and jealousy and fury at being denied his prize once more war in his breast. He would believe Eivor’s intentions, the purity of her loyalty and honor, but again and again she questions him and doubts him. He is not used to being confronted thus, and where he once viewed her stubbornness with affection, it is only a wall between them now.

_ Your passions overcome you. I know that. My father knew that. Your father knew it. _

Words he spoke, cruel and demeaning, with full awareness of how hard they would hit. He might as well have struck her, for the betrayal in her eyes. The effect was much the same. Axe blows, leaving her reeling. They fell from his tongue and his ears heard them as surely as hers did, and they resonate within him still. Never, in all their years of knowing and loving each other, has he said such a grievous thing to her. He might as well have stepped up to the bridge long joining them, blade in hand, and severed the ropes that held it suspended. There is a river as deep and wide and impassible as the mighty Gjöll between them, now. A river of his making, dividing them. He never expected her to challenge him. Of all those closest to him, he thought her to be the one who might never falter. 

_ A day will come when your friends are your enemies, and your enemies are your friends. _

Valka’s words, returning to him as they often do in times of such turmoil. Eivor, most trusted and loved, has become an enemy to his cause. And Basim, who she would counsel against and has clashed with like two stags with twisted horns, is the man she sees as Sigurd’s enemy. 

“A friend who is my enemy, and an enemy who has become my friend.” He murmurs these words to himself, though from the corner of his eye he sees Basim has heard them over the hoofbeats of their horses.

-

It is  _ true. _ All of it. Every dream he has had, every bit of memory flitting just beyond his fingertips, reluctant to be caught. Voices whisper to him; voices that only he might hear, as his hand touches the stone. And yet... It is not enough. It is only a taste of that lay beneath the surface of the waters of memory. He can almost form words with his lips as he reads the inscription. He can all but see the great branches of Yggdrasil, stretched up and outward, higher and wider than any tree known to Midgard. It shines like newly polished armor, black as night. Branches he has walked beneath before, in a lifetime so long ago.

_ Yes,  _ a voice whispers from somewhere deep within him.  _ See it, and remember what you were. _

He is a man begat by gods, just as Basim suspected . A man perhaps meant to walk beside them as an equal, when the day comes. He may reach out and pluck anything he chooses, be it from earth or sky or water. Midgard will bend its knee to him, as will all matter of man and beast. He will carve into this world, shaping flesh and bone with the blade of his great sword, until it is to his liking. A kingdom fit for a man with the blood of gods running through his veins. He is chosen, and it is a confirmation of all the moments he looked up to the sky and asked the gods to speak to him. To tell him what great destiny lies in wait beyond the shores of Norway. He has known since his first steps that he was meant for more than the small world beneath his feet. The knowing of it has driven him to distant shores time and again, always seeking that which was lost to him. No more must he seek purpose in the stars or in the rattling birds-bones of seers. It is clear to him, now. Clear as the waters springing forth from Urdr’s well.

Basim’s voice interrupts the whispers, pulling him from his dreamlike state.

“What does it say, Sigurd? Does it speak to you?”

He blinks slowly, as though only just waking. “Yes, but… the words are fogged. Shadowed. And yet… I feel their meaning. And the ash tree! I see the great Tree of Life, her boughs reaching skyward… Opening the way. It is just as you promised, Basim. All you foretold was true.”

She is beside him, just as she has always promised to be. He can feel the warmth of her at his shoulder, and joy blooms in his chest. At last, he sees everything - and she will see it, too. She will revel in such knowledge with him, and they will be as one. Just like before, just like… he has always wished them to be. Not even Eivor, with her wooden tongue and backbone of stone, can deny the truth of things now. He is so much more than the man she thought him to be, and perhaps now… it will be enough. He turns to her, frenzied with new purpose, and seizes her.

“Eivor,” he declares, flush with newfound delight. “I am more than I appear to be.  _ So _ much more.”

_ A god of great wisdom, _ the voice agrees.  _ And strength. Far more strength than you can possibly imagine. _

Her hands are on his waist. He knows this, though the touch seems to come from a far-reaching corner of the world. His body hums with the promise of knowledge, and his mind is cast to the future and the glory it yet holds. When she speaks, it is not with a voice full of shared joy as he hoped. It is tremulous and laden with worry.

“This is wicked magic, Sigurd. Dark seidr.” She clutches at him like a woman drowning, fingers tightening. “Please… Do not listen. Leave this place. Come with me. We will return home, to Ravensthorpe. And it will be as it once was. You and I, building our kingdom.”

_ She means to deny you all you have worked for. All you would gain. She cannot understand. Cannot see. _

He steps away from her, releasing her and twisting free of her grasping fingers. He lets Gjöll engulf her, lets the waters rise over her head and envelop her. Helheim take her, she would see him remain bound to his prison of shame and withered birthrights. Even now, when he is on the cusp of seizing everything he has dreamed of, she cannot share his joy. She sees only what is before her, the glory of the moment, and not the glory that awaits them. 

No.

The glory that awaits  _ him.  _

“No,” he growls. “This is real. This is  _ everything.” _

There is nothing more to say on it. She will not see him for what he is, and has closed her ears to his words. She wilts before him, like crimson petals beneath a sunless sky. Whatever else he might say to her is interrupted by the arrival of Geadric, who bursts into the room with wide eyes.

“Aelfred’s come! King Aelfred of Wessex! Marching up the rise with a mess of soldiers!”

Eivor speaks first. “Have we time to escape?” 

Geadric is breathless, his face red. “The men are spent. We’ve not a chance in blazing hell.”

“A parley, then.” He interrupts. He draws himself to full height, willing them to see him for what he is. A man who speaks, and the world trembles at his voice. “We must call a parley. I will speak… and the king of Wessex will listen.”

Word is sent, and they wait at the gate for Aelfred’s response. She stands apart from he and Basim, cheek resting upon the neck of her stallion as her hands stroke the animal’s gleaming hide. She does not look at him, will not meet his eyes, and he is almost grateful for it. Their fates are diverging, as a river in its infancy might be split by a great stone in its path. It is easier to bear when she evades him, for he is not made to look at what might have been. His love cannot weaken him, not now. All these years, he has loved her - and now she abandons him, straying from his side to cleave to Geadric and his demands. Blind and shortsighted, just as Basim said.

The hills beyond the castle are darkened by Aelfred’s army. They mount their horses and ride forth, and he does not miss the glittering speartips and sturdy shields that wait for them should the parley fail. He is beyond fear, beyond the restraints of any ordinary man. He is not fated to die this day, and he will not quake before an enemy that cannot fell him.

King Aelfred sits on a great wooden throne, over which hangs a crucifix. He is a slender man, slight of build, with hands made soft by his gentle life. By all things heard and seen, Sigurd knows the king of Wessex to be a deeply religious man. Deeply enough that he is not above killing and burning in the name of his dead god. Amusing, that such a man now sits before a living embodiment of all he doubts with such fervor. He looks about him, at the fluttering walls of the large tent and the armed men lining it, and smiles confidently. He does not bow. He will bow to no kings, be they Saxon or Dane.

“As I understand it, King Aelfred, your name is not spoken with affection here in Mercia.”

Aelfred’s lips curve with disdain. “Yet I am close enough to Wessex to hear myself praised from morn ‘til twilight.”

He spreads his hands wide. “Return to your singing subjects, then! And leave the affairs of Mercia to the Danes.”

Aelfred looks almost bored. “Not until your pagan war songs are safely out of hearing.”

Basim leans close, lips drawing near his left ear. “Offer an exchange lord,” he says. Then lowers his voice so only Sigurd might hear. “An exchange of warriors. Myself, for Aelfred’s best warrior. They cannot not hold me long. I will slip from their grasp like an eel in water, and join you on the road home.”

He nods, and Aelfred leans forward.

“Please,” the king demands. “No secrets here.”

“Let’s end this here, my lord,” he answers amiably. “We will exchange men. My best warrior for yours, to prove peace. After which, you leave Mercia, and we fall back north of the river Ouse.”

To his right, he hears the startled inhalation of breath. Eivor. Gods, she thinks he means to offer her to Aelfred. No matter. She will understand his design soon enough.

Aelfred nods thoughtfully. “These terms are fair. Wolfrich! My war thane, you will go with Geadric, brother.” Wolfrich steps forward without question, standing ready. “Name your man,” Aelfred adds, sharp eyes shifting from Eivor to Basim.

He turns his head to meet Eivor’s eyes. They are darkened by stormy thoughts, and he wills her to hear his own. To see the truth in his face; that whatever the divide that has opened between them, he loves her still, and for always. Just as he vowed he would, on a hilltop long ago. She only looks to him with confusion and dread, and he realizes in the fog of her thoughts, she is uncertain if she can take the leap she believes he is asking of her. She does not understand it is a leap he would never ask of her, however great the cost.  _ I would have burned the world for you,  _ he wills her to hear.  _ And I still will.  _

Basim steps forward, breaking the suspended moment. “Sigurd Jarl, I offer myself.”

His turns away from Eivor, from the sudden pain thrust into his belly at the look in her eyes. “Thank you, Basim.”

“King Aelfred! Wait!” Fulke bursts into the tent, running past them to kneel before the king.

Aelfred seems surprised to see her. “Paladin Fulke. Are you with this company?”

Fulke raises her bowed head. “I was, my lord. To recover from Eadwyn what was mine by right.” She stands, pointing towards him. “Sigurd is the only man you need. He’s worth more than twenty other men. He is the son of a king.”

“Traitorous snake,” he snarls. All this time, one of Aelfred’s loyal vassals was within his grasp. Had he known, he might have more to bargain in this parley than Basim.  _ A friend who is an enemy,  _ he realizes, far too late. Not Eivor. Not his little drengr. It is Fulke who is the instrument of treachery. His yearning for the stone, for answers, has been a cloth placed over his eyes until the trap closed about him.

Fulke smiles beatifically, and it is only in this moment that he sees the madness within her. It shines from her eyes like rays of sun through the trees. “And his heresies are  _ profound, _ my lord. He claims to be a living  _ god.” _

He hears Eivor moving before the words leave her lips, and as she utters her cry of rage and surges forward with one hand on her axe, he flings an arm out. Gently but firmly, he curves it about her and pushes her back, until she is behind him.

“No, Eivor,” he tells her. He feels her straining against him, her anger testing the strength of his arm. He holds her still until she yields, and only then does he return his gaze to Aelfred. “I’ll give myself to you, King Aelfred, for it is not my fate to die by your hand.”

“Sigurd,  _ no.” _

The desperation in her plea is the sharpest of blades, slicing through his heart as though it were little more than seafoam.

He forgets all thoughts of glory, all dreams of destiny. The voice within him is silent, as Yggdrasil crumbles to ash in his mind’s eye. He is no longer a man begat by the gods. No longer the son of a king. He is a mortal man, who's next act must be one of selflessness. He would die here gladly, sword in hand, cursing Aelfred’s name… if not for the woman standing behind him. He cannot leave her to Aelfred’s wolves. Cannot bear the thought of her lying upon these Mercian fields, hearts-blood staining the grass beneath her. It is a sacrifice too great, and he would let all else go before this. He gestures Aelfred to wait, and turns to her once more. He cups her face in his hands, soothing the skin of her cheeks with his thumbs. She trembles beneath him, so slightly that only he might know of it. 

_ I will protect you, as you protect me. That is my oath. _

“Be still, little drengr,” he says with all the love in his heart, that she will hear it and know. “You must let me go.”

“I  _ can’t,”  _ she whispers, and tears glaze her eyes and threaten to fall, pooling at the corners and glittering like gems. 

“It is the only way you will leave this place, Eivor. I must do this. We will see each other again soon, and there will be great rejoicing and a mighty feast held in our honor. This much, I swear to you.”

He wants to believe his own words. He wants to feel the certainty he has always felt, all his life - but he does not feel it now. He has lost a part of himself in the face of her grief. He can only see her distress, and taste his own fear of losing her. Either here, on this grassy slope, or in the months ahead… wherever these Saxon dogs might take him. Her hands overlap his, then, and her lip quivers as she presses him to her.

“I will find you, Sigurd,” she vows, with all the ferocity and determination he has loved well and long. “Wherever they take you, I will follow. And I will make them bleed until the rivers run red with their blood and the smoke from their fields darkens the sun.” 

There is no hesitation in him, now. The long and dark swan-road that has brought them to this precipice no longer matters. He lowers his head - a man who bows to no king, but will always bow to her - and kisses her. She is stone beneath him, cold and rigid, as though she fears she might crack if she allows warmth to steal into her. This he knows, as he knows her. And so he kisses her until the stone does crack, and the steel running through her in place of bone melts beneath the heat of the forge that blazes between them. He kisses her as though he might never get the chance again, and if he dwells too long on it he might cave beneath the fear of such a fate. In his heart of hearts, he fears nothing more than for this to be an end. 

As they lead him away, he casts one more look over his shoulder at her. His little drengr. His stone-arm. His greatest friend and most staunch ally, who he has betrayed with his madness and greed. His valkyrie, beautiful in her sorrow, haloed by the light filtering through the tent flap. The last thing he hears from her is the hitch in her throat, the muffled sob she smothers, as he is escorted from her view.

_ What have I done, to so cruelly cast aside the greatest gift the gods have given me? I am sorry, my greatest love. I have betrayed your heart. _


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Descriptions of torture and depair ahead. Sorry, guys. Sigurd has a really bad time in this chapter. This covers his time with Fulke and his rescue, and if you need to skip it... it's okay. I just felt like this was an important part of our peek into his mind.

Fingers with a grip like iron lift his chin. He is tired, too tired to care. He allows it, the fatigued muscles and tendons in his neck grateful for the respite from holding his head upright on their own. He is bone-weary from nights without sleep, and the world fades in and out before him as though seen through shifting fog. The madwoman Fulke is relentless, working away at him like a small knife whittling bone. A blade not limited by its size, for it is tireless and sharp, and it carves away at him still. He wonders if there will be anything left of him, when she has her answers and the blood-bag he inhabits is too broken to bear the weight of him.

“Again,” Fulke demands, raising the saga stone before his eyes. “You must focus, Sigurd. Sound them out. Your tongue remains where it is seated, does it not?” Blood... _h_ _is_ blood... marks the stone where her fingers rest.

How many nights has he been here? There is no light in this dark room, no indication of sun or moon to ease the endless hours. Perhaps he has been here for only a day. Perhaps it has been weeks. He longs only for rest, for a respite from the misery of his body and Fulke’s cruel hands.

_ You will die in this place,  _ the voice warns.  _ If you do not remember, she will kill you with her efforts to release me.  _ It has lost much of its commanding tone, sounding full of sorrow rather than echoing with power. As though it, too, feels his agony.

“You will not stand between me and the will of the Ancients, Sigurd.” Fulke smiles, a flash of even, white teeth. A wolf’s jaws with the lips curled away. She gives him a hard shake, and her efforts are rewarded by another groan of pain from him as the spikes studding the chair beneath him work deeper into his flesh.

_ She has not broken me,  _ he tells himself for what might be the thousandth time, whispered in the dark recesses of his mind. It is the only place he might still be himself, his only refuge. It is only in his mind he is free from her torments, and even now he feels the walls closing in on him. Soon, she will break him open. A sea-bird’s egg, yolk spilling upon the rocks below for the waves to lap at. He screws his eyes tightly shut.  _ I have strength yet. I will make no sound, save the labor of my lungs. She cannot make me cry out.  _

But make him, she does. It is always thus. He tells himself he might resist it, that he will go elsewhere in his mind - but the pain always returns him to the present. To her grinning teeth and endless questions. To this hateful chair, and the desperate spasms of a body pushed too far. When she presses the blade she holds to his chest, just beneath his right collar bone, he shakes his head.

“The necklace,” he pleads, reminding her. “You will ruin it with my blood.”

She is gracious as ever, turning the bit of broken shield around so that it falls down his back, resting between his shoulder blades. The weight of it against his skin is the only thing that keeps him tethered to Midgard, he thinks.

“Thank you,” he manages to say. Shame blooms in his cheeks at the sudden gratitude he feels. She could easily snap the leather cord and toss the remnant of his old life from him, but she affords him this small courtesy. She is maddeningly courteous, despite the pain she brings him.

“You are ever so welcome,” she answers, sounding pleased with herself.

Tonight, she carves deeply into the meat of his chest. He thinks he might suffocate on his muffled scream, but he holds it in. Holds it until he can feel the veins in his neck cording with their protest, and his fingers spasm from the force of his grip upon the arms of the chair. He holds it, one man against a thousand, until her fingers follow the path of her blade. She traces the ragged edges, before burying them in the furrow she has just carved. He feels her nimble fingers rooting about in his flesh, pulling and tugging at him as her eyes burn brightly. He screams, then. In his mind, he tells himself it is not he that screams. It is another man, a lesser man. Not a man descended from the gods. A man favored above all else. No man with so great a destiny before him would scream so, like a broken old woman made brittle by years.

No, he is not screaming. Someone else screams, and as their cries tear at his ears and savage his throat until it is as shredded as his skin, he pities them. How sad, that they would crumble so easily.

“There is more to you than all this,” Fulke tells him, and her face is spangled with blood. His blood. “Let the pain guide you. Let it help you unlock all that potential, all that power, trapped within you. Feel it, Sigurd.”

_ She is right,  _ the voice whispers, and because it is within his own skull he hears it over the ragged and broken cries of a stranger.  _ Let yourself go. I will speak to her, tell her what she wishes to know. I can help you. _

Her fingers burrow deeper, hungry insects seeking the marrow that lies further in. He would speak, if not for the screaming that so occupies his tongue. She sees this, senses it, and her fingers still. She withdraws them from his damaged flesh, marveling at the crimson that coats them. Fingers painted with the blood of gods.

“Did you see something?” She breathes, and the wild light dances in her eyes like hungry twin flames. She seizes his face once more, forces his head up to meet her eyes. He can feel her fingers, still slick with blood, digging into the hollows of his cheeks.

“She will come for me,” he tells her, in a voice as broken and splintered as sea-rotted wood. The shard of shield resting against his skin lends him some small remnant of strength. “Eivor will come, and when she does… The things she will do to you will make what you have done to me seem like sleeping beside a warm hearth.”

Fulke’s face twists with disappointment. “Why must you insist on dwelling over such tawdry things? She is a glorified meat puppet, Sigurd. She is beneath you. She will never find you, because she is not looking for you. I have spies everywhere, and they speak only of great singing and feasting in the halls of your clan. She is home, safe and warm, watching over your people and sitting upon your throne. That is all humans care for, Sigurd. They wish only for silver and comfort, for safety and peace. They do not have the ability to comprehend anything beyond this. Your sister is no different, for she is as small-minded as all others. She has traded you for these things, and is glad of it. Let her go. Let them all go. Together, you and I will accomplish such great things. A true look into the divine. You cannot _begin_ to imagine what majesty is locked within you.”

She says these things, and as she does she resumes her cutting and her digging and twisting; and though he tries to remember Eivor, tries to remember what it was like to hold her or touch her or fight at her side, he cannot. He thought, in the early hours of this, he might flee to the field of red flowers. That she would be there waiting for him, and they would speak and find solace in each other, and there would be refuge from this agony. But the pain both clears his mind and clouds it, and he is never able to find the focus or strength to seek her in dreams. She is gone, as is the sea of velvet petals, and he is alone. Alone with this madwoman, and the pain and realization of all he has lost.

-

He is barely lucid. If not for the straps that bind him to the chair, he would fall. A vikingr unable to walk, or speak, or fight. No, not a vikingr. A pile of crumbling bone. Fulke sits beside him, and he is too far gone to care about the shining tools that rest on the cart beside her. They have moved. This much he knows, though he was bound and saw only the inside of a burlap bag as they made their days-long journey. This new place is both cold and warm. Cold, in that he feels the stone about them and beneath them. The sort of cold that no fire can truly warm, for stone forgets nothing. He was once like stone, able to delve into his mind and choose any memory he wished. He forgot nothing. It is all fading, now, just as the bright colors of autumn fade into the gray of winter. The things he remembers now are not his to remember. Faces he knows, but has never seen. Feats he has accomplished, though he was not there and did not raise his own sword. Memories of the voice. Of  _ him,  _ but not him. 

The water of memory lapping at him with gentle golden waves. Freyja, standing at the shore and watching his suffering with sorrow-filled eyes.

A wolf - no, a boy - no, a wolf. It is a wolf, he is sure of it - trusting and curious. He remembers black fur beneath his palm, and he ruffles it with great affection. The boy - no,  _ wolf _ \- gazing up at him as though he is the kindest and wisest man in the realm. It is the way he once looked at his father, or Varin, many winters ago when he was still blinded by the innocence of his youth. He loves this boy, this wolf, though he does not remember his name. The face is blurred and unfamiliar, as movement only seen from the corner of one’s eye often is. It is that of a wolf, mouth open and pink tongue lolling between white fangs. Then it is a boy, with bright silver eyes and shaggy black hair. Black hair just like his father. His father, who…

And then it is gone, the images shifting and changing.

Memories of fighting. Of men and women far taller than he, with skin the color of sky. They hate him, and he feels their hatred carried upon steel. It is in every blow he parries or returns, thick on the air. It is a war without end, and he is weary of it. He would lay down his sword and rest. His heart has lost its joy for battle, and his arm… his arm…

_ Yes, Sigurd. Remember. Do not fight it. Remember who you are, who we are, and what we once were. _

The voice, and the pain - more blinding and more terrible than any he has felt thus far - pull him from these memories that are not his. He opens his eyes, and when he sees what she is doing to him, he screams again. And again. His lungs burn with the effort; thatch and pitch set alight and licking at the sky. Fingers twitch and dance as their ties to him are severed one by one. Blood... so  _ much _ of it, despite the tight leather strap about his bicep... stains the wood of the chair and soaks his filthy tunic. Through the tears that shame his cheeks, through the pain that rips him apart like a giant’s hands, he thinks he hears a familiar voice. Not  _ the  _ voice, but another. Higher, clearer.

_ Sigurd! _

He cannot answer. The agony binds him, binds him as tightly as Gleipnir bound the great wolf Fenrir, and it only tightens about him further as he struggles to answer. To join her, in the destroyed place that was once a field of blood-bright flowers.

_ Sigurd! _

He can only scream in reply, as tissue and bone are separated from him.  _ My arm,  _ he thinks, before black waters close over his head.  _ This has happened before. I...remember. _

_ Yes,  _ the voice answers.  _ The pain you feel now is a betrayal we remember well. Open your mind, and I will show you.  _

He is given a cot to sleep on after. It is some sweet mercy, for the pain in the stump of his right arm is near unbearable and the cold of the stone would only worsen its ache. There are no herbs for him. Neither brews nor mead are given to lessen his agony.  _ The pain is key,  _ she so often says.  _ It is the guiding light for your true self to follow.  _ He lies on his left side, curled up like a child frightened of the dark, and stares at the damp stone wall.

“Why don’t you come?” He whispers to the night, and his voice cracks with the treachery of saying such a thing aloud. The last of him breaks apart, then, the walls of his mind crumbling as fresh tears seep from his eyes. He hates himself for asking, for hoping, for dreaming of something that will never be. He has lost all sense of time in the clutches of Fulke. He thinks of the woman he loves, with her hair as bold as summer sun and her frost-bright eyes, and he almost hates her. He pictures her sitting beside a warm hearth, laughing and sharing tales with  _ his  _ people,  _ his  _ clan,  _ his  _ wife. Of her drinking  _ his  _ mead, and laughing some more as she counts  _ his  _ silver. She has abandoned him, left him to die here in the dark and dank of this place.

_ Why don’t you come? _

He forces himself upright, groaning with the effort and new pain that blooms in his beaten body. With his remaining hand, he removes the leather cord from about his neck. His fingers curl about the smooth bit of shield, tightening until the knuckles show white. Then he casts it from him in a fit of fury, and it is not until he hears the sound of it striking the stone floor that he rescinds his anger. He wails, and it is the sound of a wounded animal rather than that of a man. And then he is on his knees, hand outstretched before him, scrabbling over frigid stone and damp straw, his breath shuddering in his lungs for fear he may not find what he has lost. He sobs brokenly when his fingers close over the familiar item once more, and he presses it to his lips and utters more silent prayers to his gods. Prayers that will go unanswered.

_ She cannot help you, _ the voice mourns.  _ Any more than they can. They are lost to us. _

-

Drumbeats approach amidst the spear-din beyond these walls. He can hear them.  _ Boom. Boom. Boom. _ There is shouting amidst each beat.  _ Boom. Boom. Boom.  _ He is slumped against the altar of the christian church where she has left him. He stays still, obedient. There is no fight left in him. He does not even have the strength to stand, or to pull himself upright, if he wished to. It does not matter, now. He is only dimly aware of the world surrounding him. He is beyond such things. Above them. He is ascended. A divine being held to this earth only by a vessel of shredded meat.

_ Boom, boom, boom, _ beats the drum. He can feel it in his bones. It resonates through him as though he were the drum and a great hand were beating against him. It was not so long ago he heard such drums. The pounding against walls, as the world cracked beneath his feet. A final battle, fought shoulder to shoulder with gods he knows as brothers and sisters.  _ Boom, boom…  _

_ We witnessed the end of the world, _ his constant companion murmurs.  _ You remember, you see it as I saw it. _

And then light floods from an open door, and he can hear the sound of boots running over stone. 

“Fulke!” A voice bellows. A voice from the fringe of memory. He knows it, though it is different, now. Different from the time it once commanded him. It is higher, more piercing. 

_ Drink _ .  _ And when it is done, we will meet our fate. _

“I have done all I could to help him, Eivor,” Fulke’s voice comes from somewhere above him, and he flinches at the sound of it. “The rest is up to you.”

Eivor?

He knows this name, knows it as one remembers the taste of honey upon the tongue, no matter how many bitter winters have passed without it.

_ Eivor.  _

His vision is blurry, and he does not recognize the shape hurtling towards him until it is close. A human form. A woman, with long braids comprised of spun sunlight and eyes the color of an ocean wave’s crest. She is familiar to him. He knows her... He should know her… but his consciousness is muddied by the thoughts of two men sharing one hugr, and he cannot isolate any surety amidst the chaos. She is kneeling before him, hands cupping his face, checking him for any grievous wounds. There are tears in this strange woman’s eyes, and despite himself he shares in her sorrow. He would ask her not to cry, were his tongue not made of lead. 

_ “Sigurd,” _ she says to him. “Sigurd. I’m here for you. I have you. Please, my love, my heart, speak to me.”

_ We know her. _

He tries to answer her, but only a hoarse mumble meets his lips. He is weak. So damnably weak. He feels his head fall forward, and he is unable to stop it.

“Let me stay with him,” another voice says. “You deal with Fulke.”

Pressure, atop his head. One of  _ Eivor’s _ hands, in a gesture of reassurance. 

“I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

And then she is gone, and the place where her hand rested is the first warmth he has felt in however many hours or days or weeks or months he has suffered. He has lost all sense of time. There is nothing remaining but pain, unending darkness, and whispered words only he might hear. The lasting imprint tugs at him. It is the first kindness he has known in an eternity. He would weep for it, were his eyes not dry from so many tears already spent.

There is a rustling of cloth and leather, and then someone else is kneeling before him. A man who is dark in all the ways  _ she _ was light. Fingers lift his chin once more, though they are gentle. Cautious.

“Do you know me,  _ akhi?” _ The man asks, searching his eyes. “Do you… know yourself?”

“You…” and his voice is the rattle of old bones, and the rustle of decaying cloth. He licks his lips, forces himself to answer. “You are…”

_ Remember. _

He struggles against his warring thoughts. He is not the man who stands beneath the great Yggdrasil, but he is. He is not the man who watched his world burn, but he is. He is a man who does not know the woman with frosted eyes, or this man who kneels before him and calls him brother, but… he  _ does _ know them. He knows them as he would know kin, and as he wrestles at the bonds of his own mind, pieces of himself return to him. He silences the voice, closing it off as he would slam a door shut in another’s face.

“You are... Basim,” he manages to say. “You are… a friend, to me.”

The man before him, this…  _ Basim, _ almost looks disappointed. As though he expected different words. He nods in answer, and his eyes darken perceptibly.

“Yes. That is my name, and we are friends.”

“And... Eivor?” He asks.

“She is very dear to you,” Basim answers. “As you are to her. She has been through much to find you.”

Through the fog and confusion of his thoughts, he remembers something. It is the first spark, lighting a fire. Eivor. He called out to her, in his dreams and his waking nightmares. In the darkness that both smothered and comforted him.

_ Why don’t you come? _

Basim asks him questions, offers him water, and with each answer and each sip from the waterskin, strength returns. It is a small seed, the sprouting roots of it malformed and twisted, but it is enough for something to grow within him. Many long minutes pass, and they wait. When he is able to push himself up from against the altar, Basim aids him. He stumbles and staggers on feet made clumsy from his ordeal, but he remains upright. Together, they leave the church. He suddenly resents Basim’s hands on him, and the voice inside him flares up in mirrored anger. He is a god, and needs no aid from others.

“I can walk,” he snarls. “Let me walk!”

“Sigurd?”

She approaches him, and he recoils as though a serpent has struck out at him. The sight of her face again, cast in the bright light of day, sears through him. He  _ knows  _ her. She is Eivor, but she is Odin. She is his little drengr, but she is the all-father. She has two eyes, but he knows her to have one. It is she who haunts his dreams, whose madness and betrayal doomed them all, and he nearly falls to his knees at the sight of her. He would, were his body still under his command. 

_ Bow before Odin,  _ the voice seethes, seizing upon his weakness in this moment. It is angry, but not with him. It is angry at  _ her.  _ At Odin.  _ Give fealty to Havi, god among gods. Offer yourself up, as you have always done - a willing sacrifice, to be laid upon the field of battle. Glory his name. Bow your head, that he might spare you. _

“Eivor.” He lowers his head, and the tendons and muscles in his neck and back scream out in agony at the effort of it. “I will.. I will fight… as a thresher through a field of wheat, Mad One.”

Words he has spoken before, on the eve of battle. Words that leave him, unbidden, at the urging of the voice.

“What has she  _ done _ to you?” She asks. Her voice breaks with the words, and he sees only love in her eyes.  _ Not _ Odin. Never Odin, for Odin loves none but himself. This much, he remembers.  _ They _ remember.

A man of the cloth approaches, his voice pitched with worry. “Eivor! We delayed them as long as we could. Reinforcements from Wincestre have come. We cannot hold this place against them, not with our numbers.”

She looks to him once more, searching his face, as though reassuring herself that he is truly standing before her. Her eyes are no less troubled when she turns back to the priest.

“Get Sigurd on the boat. I will buy you as much time as I can.”

The last thing he sees as they usher him away is the sturdy line of her shoulders, and an axe in her hand. Fearless. Resolute. Breaker of bone and slayer of lesser men. Some things have changed with the many passing years, since they fought shoulder to shoulder by different names… and other things are exactly as they have always been.

  
  


He has much time to think on the long journey home. Each rock of the longboat beneath him sends flares of agony through him. Fulke tormented him until her last minutes of life, and even beyond the grave she torments him still. Every still-mending wound, every memory of injury, every flash of blade or branding iron, is as fresh in his mind as though it happened only a moment ago. His arm aches with the recollection of what it once was, and sometimes - in the times he forgets himself, and what was done to him - he imagines his fingers curling once more. Tightening in response to the agonies of his flesh.

_ I should be grateful, _ he reminds himself.  _ For she opened my mind, and I see all before me with new eyes.  _ This, he tells himself. He cannot bear the burden of all that pain and suffering to be wasted. To know he wept like a broken child night after night, all courage seeping from his bones into cold stone, for nothing. He realizes Soma is watching him, and when his eyes travel down to where she is fixated, he sees he is gripping the side of the longboat so tightly his hand is trembling. She looks away, regretful at her invasion of his thoughts, and he casts his eyes towards shore. Grateful. That is what he is. Grateful for a gift given. Every second of pain, every…

_ Why don’t you come? _

He closes his eyes, tries to focus on something else, anything else, but the ugly thoughts continue to well up unbidden.

Yes, w _ hy didn’t you, Eivor?  _ The voice joins in.  _ You left us in the dark, to rot, while you chased glory and drank mead in our hall. Just as the god you once were, you care only for yourself. You sacrificed us for your own sake. _

  
  



	31. Chapter 31

Whatever joy his clan musters upon his return is muted. He is not blind. He sees the way their eyes slough off of him like water from feathers, seeking out the space at his back. The space where they expected  _ her  _ to be. Months, Randvi tells him. He has been gone for months, and even as she says this and he hears the warmth of sympathy in her voice… he also hears sorrow. For her eyes roam to the dock with telltale yearning, and there is a faraway look in her eyes. He would laugh, if any mirth remained in his breast. Much has changed in his long absences, it would seem, and Randvi’s eyes betray her. She has never loved him, but he knows the spark in her eyes for what it is.  _ Tell me, Eivor… Did you pull her into your arms, willing and glad of heart? Did you comfort her and seek solace for yourself?  _ _ Is your precious honor so easily sacrificed in my absence? _

Fulke joins the two men warring over his hugr like dogs over scraps.  _ She has traded you for these things, and is glad of it.  _

“We will arrange for a great feast, to celebrate your return.” Randvi’s voice brings him back to the muddy path beneath him, and to the longhouse looming before him. Where he once found comfort here, the doorway now seems like a great mouth yawning open and prepared to swallow him whole. He wants to run. To flee from this place, stumbling on his feeble legs into the forest. He has left one prison for another. They expect him to be the same old Sigurd, quick of tongue and bright-eyed. They do not understand, cannot understand, that Sigurd is dead. He is reborn, remade, in a gauntlet of pain. He is no more one of them than a cuckoo is a hummingbird.

_ Meaningless gestures, _ his companion hisses.  _ You return from your torment, from your discovery of our destiny, to be pacified by roasted meats and honeyed wine. Is this all you seek? The idle keening of your clansmen? Was all your suffering so you might hide yourself away on this muddy shore, shadowed by her deeds? _

“If you wish,” he replies. And then he limps past her, and returns to his room, and does not speak again.

He does not sleep. He lies in his bed and stares at the wooden planks of the wall, much as he once lay in the dark and damp, staring at stone. Hours pass, and the room grows shadowed. There is comfort in the darkness. It is familiar, after months of living and bleeding and sobbing into the blackened blanket of night. 

He does not move when Randvi’s weight settles on the edge of the bed, on the side she once slept in.

“Sigurd… She ran herself to bone, fighting to get you back.”

He does not answer.

“You should know… You should hear it from me first… Dag is… well, he challenged her to a holmgang. They fought, and she… She had no choice.”

Words that only feed the burgeoning fury within him. In the time he has been away, she has stolen Randvi’s heart, taken his clan from him, and slain one of his oldest friends. He closes his eyes, lest he allow himself to speak. He does not trust the words that might come.

_ It is her way,  _ the voice tells him.  _ As it was in the time before this life. Everything she does is delivered in the name of good intentions. If a few must fall for the greater good, so be it. She will tell you she had no choice... but she might have laid down her axe. Instead, she slew him for standing in her way. We are stones to be ground beneath her heel in the making of a road. _

“You have been greatly missed.” There is a desperate note in Randvi’s words, and she shifts uneasily. “We have all been eager for your return.”

“No doubt you have enjoyed my time away as much as I have.”

His words silence her, and the room grows as quiet and still as a burial ground. She waits, hoping for more, but he gives her nothing but his rigid spine. She sighs at last, rising to her feet.

“I will be just down the hall, in Eivor’s room. If you need me… if you need anything… Call out, and I will come.”

_ I did call out,  _ he answers silently.  _ And none came, save for the rats and the dripping water.  _

He waits until she is gone, and then he does what he has done a hundred - or perhaps a thousand, or more - times since he was taken. He pulls the bit of shield from where it lies against his skin, and he curls his fingers around it and tightens them, until the smooth wood digging painfully into his palm distracts him from the howling that has never truly left his throat. Mad and wild howling, like that of a wolf caught in a trap, even now seeking to emerge. He focuses on the token in his hand, and sucks in a great lungful of air. Only when the hysteria abates is he able to sleep. His dreams are fragmented, plagued by memories of a life before this one. 

_ He is kneeling on a floor, in an empty room of weeping stone. Before him, the pieces shine and glimmer in the light. Bits of a mirror, that he attempts to piece together again. Only when he has done this, only when the task is complete, will he have his answers and know his destiny. The sharp edges and corners cut his fingers, until the man reflected in them is distorted by the crimson smears and droplets. _

_ Am I you, or are you me? He asks a shard of glass. It does not answer, only cuts. Cuts him so deeply he cries out, and then he finds himself back in the dreaded chair, and now only one hand bleeds - for the other is gone, resting upon a table beside him as though it were a dead thing that crawled there itself.  _

-

He watches his people eat and drink and laugh, and feels only dull resentment. He brindles at every kind word, and the way their eyes slide from him like droplets of oil on water’s surface. Always, their gaze lands on his stump momentarily, or the bandages that are visible despite his clothing being returned to him. They are as thoughtless as she, for despite his months of torture they do not appear to have suffered. They are content, complacent. They have grown fat under Eivor’s lax hand, losing their hunger for glory. He doubts this feast is in his honor. No, this feast is for the true hero. Their darling. The woman who left him - them - to his misery.

He drinks. First one horn, and then another, and then another. He drinks until the aches in his body soften, until his temper grows still more molten. He clutches his horn so tightly he thinks it might break beneath his iron fingers, and his mouth stretches into a thin line each time one of his clan laughs or shouts  _ skal.  _ A shadow darkens the door, and he need not look up to see who it is - for a resounding chorus of  _ Eivor! Welcome back, drengr!  _ R ises like a miasma from his gathered people. She shrugs them away, her eyes only for him as she strides across the plank floor.

“Sigurd Jarl!” she cries, arms spread wide. “Back where you belong!”

There are echoes of her words through the longhouse. Half-hearted wingbeats following the wind. He only raises his horn and drinks again, lips numb from the great amount he has imbibed. He remembers her fully, now. The confusion on the day of his liberation has passed, and he is both a god and a man with memories of them both. Eivor. Sister, shield maiden. A woman he once thought to be his lover, though she cast him aside as easily as a broken arrow from her quiver. He once thought of her as his right hand, a sentiment that nearly brings mirth to his lips now. He has no right arm - neither attached to his body nor standing before him.

She lowers herself to her knees before him, now, and her two hands rest on his knee. Her voice is lowered, tender, meant only for his ears.

“I have missed you,” she tells him with feeling, and somehow manages to look guileless.

_ Missed us so terribly she took months to find us, _ his shadow-twin says.

Ugliness and disgust well in him like heat from a forge, and the sparks erupt from his mouth. He does not temper them.

“Yes,” he says. “You  _ missed _ me. Once or twice, I hear.”

She stares at him as he takes another drink. 

“What?” Her voice has lost its joy, and when he meets her eyes, the hurt on her face is so palpable it is as though Fulke has scored her flesh as well.

“You took your time finding me.” He lowers his horn, and it creaks in his grip. “Was it for this? To enjoy your time on my throne?”

_ How many nights did she sit here, _ his other self asks,  _ warming the very furs we now sit upon? Did she drink from our horn as well? Fill her belly with food from our stores? Did she grow drunk on these luxuries, and bed your wife, instead of you? _

“I did all that I could,” she protests. “I did all that you asked of me.”

“And slew all those that questioned you?” He snarls.

“That is not what happened!” She looks over her shoulder, seeking an ally. “Randvi. Randvi will tell you…”

  
  


His eyes travel to the same point as hers, where Randvi stands in conversation with another. “O yeah, will she? My dear wife, brought to me as a gift by her clan to pacify my ambition? Who looks at you with the wide eyes of a moon-calf, and trembles for the sound of your tender words? Yes, I am sure she will be the one to tell me the truth.”

She takes her hands from his knee, and even amidst the hatred churning in his breast and threatening to consume him, he mourns their loss.

“What did that witch Fulke do to you?” She whispers, standing. He rises to meet her, disgust for his ailing and weakened body only fueling his rage.

“You could not even begin to imagine the things I have seen,” he roars. “What I’ve learned. Born of gods, is who I am. A lord of war! I know who I am, I know my destiny! And you--” and here he jabs a finger at her, overcome with his fury, “Will not hinder me!”

She seems to wilt beneath the fire of his anger. She takes a step back, and another, her eyes both wounded and wary. Only then does he realize the feast hall has grown silent as the grave. His eyes leave her stunned face to look over the sea of faces staring at him, unease and fear written in their features.

“Sigurd?” The tenderness has returned to her voice, and he hates her for it. Hates the way she looks at him, concerned and sympathetic, where she should be humbled. Afraid.

“Forgive me,” he murmurs, the heat leaving him. And suddenly he is cold, as cold as bones that have been made to sleep upon stone for many weeks. “I am faint. Tired of the day, and all that has passed. I need... air.”

He leaves the longhouse, and the sea of bewildered eyes. He can feel them on his back, boring into him long after the longhouse dwindles behind him. He goes to the graveyard, where the stone statues might pass no judgement and the rustling trees comfort him with the sound of the wind’s embrace. There he sits, staring at the mound of dirt and stones where Dag is laid to rest, and only then does he release the breath he has been holding in his lungs.

_ She is changed, _ the voice muses, and its confusion floods him, mingling with his own confusion and grief.  _ She is… softer, gentler than I remember.  _ **_He_ ** _ would never have bowed at your words in such a way. Would never have allowed you to so much as speak them. _

His throat tightens with regret, and he runs his hand over his face, as though to slough away the doubt and sadness and anger that still cling to him in the shape of a dozen lines etched into his features. Lines that were not there a few months ago, but have taken shape just as quickly as his many new scars.

She seeks him out some time later, when his temper has cooled and he is calm once more. She approaches quietly, so as not to startle him, but he would know those soft footfalls anywhere.

“There you are,” she says softly, when her voice might reach his ears. She sits on the log beside him, though she chooses the spot furthest from him. She is afraid of him. Wounded by him. It is a realization that only increases his sorrow. When he does not answer after several long moments, she prods gently once more. “Sigurd?”

_ She is relentless as ever, _ he thinks. Were he a corpse and she a crow, she would not relent until every bit of flesh had been picked from his bones.

“Dag died defending my honor?” He asks at length, not meeting her eyes. He is not sure he can bear what he will find in them.

“So he claimed,” she acknowledges. 

“Then he was a fool,” he says. “My honor needs no defense. It is stone-solid. Unblemished.”

“I offered him a way out, but--”

He silences her with his raised hand.  _ “Shhh. _ Say nothing more of the past. It is gone. There is a rift as deep as death between then... and now.”

She nods, accepting his dismissal, and they sit in silence for a time, watching the wind shift the grass over Dag’s grave. He is surprised by the voice’s silence. It has withdrawn, leaving him to speak unhindered.

“I was tested, Eivor,” he says at last. “In a crucible of blood and fire. And in my agony, I was reborn. You may think me less than I was,” and he raises his stump, that she might once more gaze upon his infirmity. “But this is not so. I am greater than before.”

“I have never, would never, think you less than you were.” Her voice is so gentle he might think it part of the hum of contented insects about them. “I am only sorry I could not reach you, before… Before it was too late.”

“Do not be sorry,” and his words sound dazed even to his own ears. “For Fulke gave me the greatest of gifts, and I… am grateful for it.”

He looks at her, and again mirth threatens to rise in him. She cannot see him for what he is, for she is willfully blind in the face of what she, herself, is. 

“Do you not see it, Eivor?” He asks, shifting to face her. “Can you not see my true nature?”

“I want to understand,” she says hesitantly. “But these things you say… they make no sense. I see only my jarl, returned to where he belongs. Where he is loved and cherished.”

He allows a small smile, turning from her and lowering his eyes. “You are kind, but your eyes are clouded by the past. A place I can no longer see. I fear our paths diverged long ago.”

She stands, and from the corner of his eye he sees it is the way one very old might move - slow, painful, as though the effort has sapped the last of her strength.

“I do not understand your strange words, Sigurd,” she says. “But our paths have not diverged. My oath is ironclad, and I vowed to be at your side from here to Valhalla. I mean to keep that oath, whether or not you are ready to accept it.” Pressure, atop his head, as her hand rests upon his crown. “When you are ready, I will be here.”

_ Compassion, _ the voice speaks at last, and there is awe in it. _ In far greater amounts than I could dream. What strange world have you woken me to? _

And then she is gone, walking back down the dirt pathway with her shoulders sloped and her once-proud head defeated, and he cannot help but feel as though he has taken something from her. Something as vital as what was taken from him. The realization galls him, like sweaty leather rubbing against skin, and he curls within himself in shame. He stays besides Dag’s grave for many hours, his head resting in his hand, until the sun drops below the hills and he is cast into darkness once more. Darkness, which is familiar and safe. For it was only in darkness that he was spared the agonies of his flesh. 

  
  


-

  
  


_ Cool water touches his parched lips, and he drinks so eagerly he might be ashamed if not for his desperation.  _

_ “You do not understand, yet,” Fulke croons. “The meat you are bound to is so very limited. But your mind… Ah, that is the true treasure. The secrets of the ancients, locked away all these years. To think our paths crossed as they did. How fortunate.” _

_ She withdraws the small wooden bowl, and he only just contains his cry of anguish. She sets it on a surface before turning back to him. He is chained spread-eagle against the stone wall, the weight of his body resting upon the shackles about his wrists. Fire burns in his shoulders, burns with a ferocity to equal his thirst. His flesh is cut to ribbons by her braided whip, the filth of his body and the grit of the wall behind him working deeper into the wounds with every involuntary movement. His throat is raw from his agonies and from far too little water. Two days she has kept him here, cutting him and sewing each wound closed again. He wonders how much more he might be able to take, before his body bends like a blade of grass beneath a heavy boot. _

_ “Tell me of your sister, Sigurd,” Fulke says, stroking his cheek with a finger. “Or… The woman you call sister. The kiss you bestowed upon her was not very brotherly, and she is not bound to you by blood. Is she like you, Sigurd? Does her mind also hold keys to doors I would open?” _

_ “Leave her be, witch-woman,” he gasps as fingers knead tender flesh. “She is nothing like me. She is a blood-thirsty drengr with a mind for glory and treasure. Nothing more. She has never looked beyond the shore at her feet. Not as I have.” _

_ Fulke studies him for a long moment, then nods. “Perhaps you are right. But she is surprisingly adept for a simple Dane, as you say. Maybe when I am done with you, she and I will have a… discussion.” _

_ His reaction startles her. Sudden, dormant strength floods him and he strains violently against his bonds. He knows it is no use, this weak body against steel shackles, but his fury overtakes him and it feels good. He feels alive, for the first time in many days and nights, and he feels himself gnash his teeth at her like a mad dog. Fulke’s eyes go wide, and she takes a small step back. One small step, that is sweeter than any victory he has ever won before. _

Y ou diminish us with your anger, _ the voice cautions.  _ Is she worth it, this woman you love, who has abandoned you?

_Yes,_ he answers silently.  _ She is worth everything, and more. Every sting of the lash is one she may never feel. I will bear it gladly. _

You are a fool, _ it says.  _ We have sacrificed ourselves for another once before, and were left with nothing but pain to remember it by.

_ “I’ll see you fed to the crows if you touch her,” he snarls, ignoring the voice and returning to attention to Fulke. His voice is feral, unhinged, to his ears - and it gives him great pleasure. _

_ “I will make you a deal, my large friend,” Fulke’s mouth widens into a smile. “Give me something. One thought, one memory, one snippet of what I seek - and I will not gut your beloved Eivor like a trout, and leave her steaming entrails to the crows your people so love.” _

_ She steps forward, her courage returned, and he feels the cold steel of a blade against his belly. She leans close. Close enough that he might hear her soft words, but not so close that his teeth might find flesh. _

_ “Like this,” she tells him, and he feels the knife slide into him as though he is butter that has warmed in the sun. “Dig deep, Sigurd - lest I bury this same knife in your only true friend.” _

Let me speak, _his silent companion urges._ And I will spare you the pain to come.

_ He tries. He tries desperately. The door between himself and the voice is locked, though he can hear whispers through it. One prisoner, speaking in hushed tones to another.  _

_ It is not the twisting of the knife in his belly he fears, for at this point he would welcome any death it might bring - but the thought of her, of his Eivor, at the hands of this madwoman is enough to make him weep and rage. He cries out, as he always does, for it is as inevitable as fate. In his agony and his desperation, images come to him, carried on the whispers of the voice. Faces, that he now has names for. Places he has been. Again, he sees the doorway - and above it hangs the saga stone. All this he sees, and more, and Fulke laughs in delight at the sharing of it. _

_ She leaves when he has no more to spill, be it words or blood, and he is left to watch the sky darken through the small window she has been kind enough to grant him. Darkness takes him, and with it the ache in his eyes that comes with each new memory is soothed. Darkness, a shroud which he wraps about himself like a lover’s arms. Comforting. Darkness means the torment is at an end, and the only pain he feels is his own regret. _

  
  


He wills himself into a world of darkness, now. It makes the pain of waking from his endless nightmare at Fulke’s hands bearable. Makes the weight of who he is, what he is, easier to shoulder. Darkness lessens the ache in his missing arm, and the ghosts of pain latticed across his body in a patchwork of scars. He hangs coverings over the places where light pours into his room, barring the sun and its songbirds from his dwelling. He lies upon his empty bed with furs pulled over his eyes, though it makes him sweat and itch. He does not wash himself, for he cannot bear the sight of what was done to him. He does not wish to see the proof of his weakness, nor remember the screams and tears that were his. He does not feel like the son of a king, or a god reborn. He does not feel like a man… and perhaps he is not. He feels like a thrall, grateful for table scraps tossed upon the floor. His mind is a wellspring of knowledge… and so, too, is it his prison.

Randvi brings him food and drink each day, setting it beside him wordlessly before retreating. He has been harsh with her. He has been harsh with them all. In his misery-clouded mind, he finds pleasure in their fearful eyes and the way they flinch at his blade-sharp words.  _ Let them suffer as I have suffered,  _ he thinks.  _ It is only a small and bitter taste from the cup I was made to drink from.  _

Only at night, when Ravensthorpe is silent and the candles burn low, does he ever emerge. He walks to the docks and stares at the river, and considers stepping into it. Let the current take his useless body, that he might cast his mind to the heavens and rejoin his brothers and sisters there. Was it so long ago that he stood here, waiting for Eivor, that he might show her the room prepared in her honor? He remembers the wonderment in her eyes at the fine things gathered, and the fleeting hope it gave him as they sat side by side on her bed. This is what he is thinking of when hoofbeats disturb his peace, and he clings to the shadows lest he be made to exchange words. He has no heart for pleasantries. Not anymore. Two horses enter Ravensthorpe, and he recognizes the great black stallion at once. The dappled horse beside him is familiar too, but the laughter is all he needs to confirm his thought. Eivor and Basim, returned from yet another mysterious journey.

“...Styrbjorn was furious,” Eivor is saying as she reins her horse in. “It took Sigurd’s would-be bride days to get all the egg out of her braids. They withdrew the proposal after that. I guess her dignity was not worth a two day’s ride of stiff braids.”

Basim chuckles. “Your efforts only delayed the inevitable, it would seem.”

“I ran out of hen’s eggs,” Eivor answers, and he can tell by the sound of her voice that she is grinning. "Else I'd have kept them all at bay."

He withdraws, and knows the burning in his cheeks for what it is. Jealousy. He has nothing, and she… has everything. Even friends that were once his belong to her, and he would hate her for it if not for the knowing that he has done this to himself. His grasping fingers tugged his own noose free, giving it enough length to choke him. He melts into the shadows, returning to his room. He lets the darkness envelop him once more, cocooning him, until there is nothing but memories of pain and Fulke’s voice scoring his spirit as her blades score his flesh. He does not leave his room again. For three more days, he stares listlessly at the wall. He does not eat, and his skin hangs loosely from him as he withers, withers away... a god in a prison of bone.

-

He hears her standing in the doorway, but he does not turn. She walks past him, setting something down on the table. He sees her, but is blinded to her. His protective cloak of darkness demands his stillness, his obedience. He wills her away with his thoughts, but she does not heed his silent whispers. She kneels before him, and with her eyes lowered and reluctant to meet his, she begins to undo the fastenings of his mantle. He sees her, then. His carefully constructed darkness falls from his shoulders as does the fur mantle, and he shivers for the sudden chill its absence brings. She is a slip of sunlight, shining through a slit cut into a sail and splitting its shadow. Even in this dim light, her hair gleams like sunstones in a golden crown and her lashes are tipped with frost that will never thaw. 

Bit by bit, she strips him of his layers. He cannot help but flinch at her hands upon his flesh, for it is a reminder of the last time someone touched him. The madness within him boils, a pot set on the heat of a fire too long, but he is paralyzed. A rabbit sitting still as death in the snow before a wolf. She is gentle in her movements, aware of his disquiet. She takes his belts, his hauberk, his tunic - and then her fluttering hands go still, and he hears the intake of her breath as eyes that shine like frozen stars settle on his battered torso.

_ She sees what is left, now,  _ he thinks somewhat sadly.  _ All that is left from the pieces Fulke has carved away. Hideous and disfigured, whatever my ancestry might be. I am not fit to join them, and I am not fit for her. Not for Eivor of the stone-arm, wielder of death. _

But she is not looking at the myriad of scars, or the once-strong arm ending too soon. He feels the tentative touch of fingertips against his skin, skimming over the bit of wood about his neck, and he almost loses himself at the sensation. His breath catches in his throat, and he holds it there - holds it prisoner, that it might not betray him, until it is a sigh and nothing more. She meets his eyes, then, and for a suspended moment he thinks she will speak. But her throat bobs with her own contained emotion, and instead she takes his boots.

_ She is gentle with us, despite our anger and ill use of her. _ His constant companion, the god within his mind, shares his eyes and sees her in new light.  _ We know her, and yet… we do not. I… do not understand this. _

_ Nor do I,  _ he admits silently.

She washes his hair, and he does not fight her. He allows his head to hang, closes his eyes as soapy water runs down his forehead and bejewels his eyelashes. As her fingernails gently score his scalp, his eyes burn. He tells himself it is the soap. Surely a god does not weep, not even one being bathed by a beautiful valkyrie before his final journey. He finds himself leaning into her, almost unconsciously, as some small amount of trust is restored in his heart. Something nudges at him. A voice borne of the dark Eivor has only just shouldered aside. Fulke’s poison, spreading through him.

_ She has traded you for these things, and is glad of it.  _

He trembles, and she pauses in her work for a moment - but then the scrubbing resumes, and with it he finds renewed strength.

_ No,  _ the voice within him answers before he is able to.  _ She has not. Is not. You were wrong about her. _

She braids his hair once more, and the sensation is almost luxurious. She allows it to hang down his back, and the leather bindings and damp hair are cool against his skin. 

“Stand, Sigurd.” 

He stands, meek and obedient. He does not have the strength to fight anyone, least of all against her. He is too dazed, too lost in clouded thought, to protest or feel shame as she loosens the lacing of his trousers and they fall to the floor. As she begins to clean him in gentle circular motions of the warm cloth, he is surprised by her tenderness and by the determination and sorrow upon her face. He has never seen this side of her; this woman who is more comfortable with an axe than wreaths or posies or the singing of songs. For as long as he has known her she has preferred the breaking of skulls to the breaking of bread… and yet, she affords him a gentleness now that he did not know she possessed. These are not the motions of a woman who has betrayed him in her heart, and the realization of it threatens to close his throat. It is as though a great hand has clasped about his neck, squeezing, rendering him without speech.

She dresses him once more with equal care, and as she buckles the straps of a new mantle into place she speaks at last.

“Do you remember this?” She asks as she smooths the sleek, black fur. “It is from the great wolf we once slew together, all those winters ago.”

His eyes lower to the thick, dark fur. He is unable to speak, though a sound of assent manages to escape his lips. She smiles sadly, her fingers stilling in the ruff of a once-mighty wolf.

“I had Gunnar make it for you, some time ago. I thought… I thought we would be together again, much sooner than we were.”

_ Odin return my voice to me, _ he prays silently, and the frozen chords thaw reluctantly. Winter’s lasting grip caving to the first truly warm rays of sun.

“I was wrong.”

It is not his voice. Neither the voice of a god nor the voice of Sigurd Styrbjornsson, but a shadow of what once was. He swallows hard, tries again, suddenly terribly conscious of the two rings of frost now focused on his face.

“When I… Said those cruel things to you, at the feast. I was wrong.”

“You were not yourself.” Her hand is resting against his chest, and the heat of her palm grants him still more strength. Enough strength to bear the burden of breathing, of speaking. 

“I am not myself now, either. Not the man you once knew. I am both more, far more, and… less.”

She shifts her hand until it is just over his heart, and the bit of wooden shield rests beneath her fingers. “When I look at you, I see only my Sigurd. I know you, as I have always known you - though fate has tried to tear us apart. I know your heart. The drum of it beneath my hand, now, is that of the same heart that has always beat within your chest. You are changed, yes. We are both changed. But our hearts are the same.”

_ She loves us, _ the voice marvels.  _ Above herself, and all else. She loves us. _

He does not speak again, for he knows if he does his lip will tremble and his shoulders will shake, and he cannot afford either. He has been so weak for so terribly long, and has only just found ground his feet may find purchase on at last. He overlaps her hand with his own, presses it to himself, and though there are some deep bruises and cuts that have not yet healed… he welcomes the pain that comes with the pressure, for with it the sun has returned to him, and the darkness he has swathed himself in ebbs just a little. Just enough.

  
  
  



	32. Chapter 32

There are moments where he almost feels himself. Fragments of time where he is not a man gazing at shattered pieces of mirror, or wading through the mire of a god’s memories. Moments where he looks at Eivor and feels as though he is home, somehow. Moments where he is free, and it is almost like the old days. They do not last long. Always, he is reminded of the truth of things... Reminded by the things he cannot change. The endless ache in his half-arm, the ghost of fingers that remember what it was to grip a sword. The voice that shares his mind and body. The fatigue in his spirit, and the dreams that return time and time again. Their lives in Norway and the early weeks spent on England’s shores inevitably crumble, and he is left with eyes that see too much and a mind that remembers still more.

She has been gone three weeks this time, and each day stretches out before him longer than the last. He spends much of his time sequestered in his room, wrestling with his own thoughts. Other times he leaves Ravensthorpe to stroll through the surrounding fields and forests. It quiets his mind, and he is not concerned about his safety. He has grown stronger with Eivor’s relentless attention. Their sparring matches in the clearing have allowed him to regain something of his former self, and though he is clumsy at times with his left arm he makes up for it in the power of his swings. On this particular day, he sits atop the Ragnarsson overlook and watches clouds form on the horizon. A storm is coming, and he waits until the last possible moment to climb down the high structure and make his way back to the settlement. The first raindrops begin to fall as he crosses the longhouse threshold.

It rains until the pathways of Ravensthorpe turn into muddy streams, snaking their way down the slopes and joining the swelling river. Mouse, Eivor’s great white wolf, settles at his feet where he sits at the feast table. Together, they watch the deluge from the safety of the warm hearth. He finds his hand has settled atop the animals’ head, and that his fingers are furrowing in the thick, snowy fur. Mouse enjoys the attention, leaning into it and blinking somewhat blissfully. He is reminded of how he felt when Eivor’s own fingers carded through his hair as he rested his head in her lap. It was perhaps the first moment since his return that he felt truly warm, and the sun on his cheek combined with her gentle song lulled him into a sleep that was truly peaceful. Gods, but he misses her now. He hates how much he needs her, for it is another reminder of how weak he truly is. A god, who yearns for tender words to sooth his aching spirit. Sigurd, the god who stumbles.

_ We both miss her,  _ the voice within him confesses.  _ When she is away, there is only darkness in your mind. I prefer the sunlit fields of her presence. _

Night falls, and it is the sort of darkness that can only come when the moon and stars are buried beneath a blanket of heavy clouds. He rises slowly from the bench, ignoring the chuff of protest from the wolf at his feet.

“Come, then, if you will,” he tells the wolf, though he knows Mouse will not. There is only one person Mouse deigns worthy of sharing a bed with, and she is gone to Glowecestre. He returns to his room alone, removing his fur mantle and his boots. When he lies on his bed and stares up at the ceiling, he cannot help but feel a great unease. The storm rages on outside, beating against the longhouse with its heavy fists, and Thor strikes his anvil with great booming blows. He is afraid to sleep, for if he sleeps he will dream… and on nights like this, the dreams are always of Fulke. He fights his exhaustion until his lids close unbidden, betraying him.

His dreams are of a room with four stone walls, and a floor so cold it makes his bare feet ache when they touch it. Alone in the darkness, with only the weakened voice of a god for company.

It is still raining by the first hours of morning, still dark, when the first droplet touches his cheek. It is ice cold, startling him as it splashes upon his cheekbone. He wakes immediately, as a man expecting death might wake from a cautious sleep. His eyes fly open and his breath catches. Another drop follows its brother on a mad plummet, and the sensation of it striking his skin paralyzes him. He can’t move, can’t breathe. For all the warmth of the longhouse around him, he is suddenly shivering from the cold of it. 

_ He is too lost in his own pain to move. He cannot bring himself to look at the stump, swathed in bandages that even now grow bloody from the weeping end they conceal. The agony blinds him, fogging his vision. He is weeping again. He does not have the strength to hold it back. Not anymore. In the comfort of darkness and the silence in the absence of his tormentor, he is free to drown in his misery and self-pity and pain. His fatigued muscles complain as he convulses with his dry sobs. It is not howling that leaves his throat, but the rattle of bones. The creak of distressed ship planks. The moaning of wind through trees. Something shattering, breaking, splintering. From somewhere above him, water drips. Plip, plip, against his skin. He cannot bring himself to turn over, to evade it. He is curled into himself as tightly as he can muster, his body locked and immovable, and so the water continues to find him. Plip, it travels down the slope of his cheekbone and snakes its way into his haggard beard. Plip, sliding into the corner of his mouth and spreading over his parched lips.  _

_ Plip, plip, plip. Each new droplet is another torment. A mockery of him, and the body as feeble and broken as his dreams of kingship. In his rictus of pain and mind-sickness, he cannot bring himself to move. And so he lies still as rivulets of frigid water chill him to the marrow, and his sobs are replaced by the mad howling of a dying beast. _

_ Sigurd.  _ A voice, reaching out to him. Pushing through the howls assaulting his ears.

Howling that, he realizes, is bleeding into reality. 

_ Sigurd.  _

The fog begins to ebb, and a face forms where it once clouded his vision. A face he knows. Eyes as blue as a summer sky, gazing at him with concern. Scars - a nick carved into the edge of her lip, and the other nearly the length of her face - faded with years, but no less familiar. Golden braids, darkened to a burnished bronze by the rainwater that has soaked them. She does not touch him, knows not to in his current state, but she kneels beside the bed with her elbows on her knees, waiting for his world to solidify around him. 

_ Eivor, _ the voice is as cracked and broken as he himself feels, gratitude at her presence flooding Sigurd’s body.  _ She is here. She will drive the shadows away. _

He cannot seem to breathe. His lungs stutter and falter in his chest, still paralyzed by memory. His cheek is wet and cold from the dripping water. When she sees he is awake, that he recognizes her, she extends her hand. The heat of her palm and her fingers against his frozen cheek is that of a blazing fire amidst a snowbank. Frost and ice melt before the licking flames, and warmth returns to his rigid body.

“Breathe for me,  _ elskan,”  _ she whispers, thumb stroking the ridge of his brow. “Draw it in and hold it for a moment. Just as when you are lining up an arrow.”

He closes his eyes, struggles to do as asked. The sweeping of her thumb against his chilled skin helps. He manages to pull in a shuddering breath, forcing his lungs to obey.

“Yes,” she murmurs, “There you go.”

It takes several of these breaths for control to return to his limbs. For him to draw breath without enormous effort. He feels as though he has been on a battlefield for days without rest or respite, and his voice shakes when he is able to speak.

“What is happening to me?”

“Our darkest days are not so easily forgotten, Sigurd,” she tells him softly. “But in time, these demons that pursue you will grow tired from their chase. All pain, all wounds, be they from the blade of an axe or the bite of words, are temporary. This will not be forever.”

“Would that I believed you,” he whispers. 

He sees, now, she is soaked to the bone. No doubt caught in the raging storm outside, but determined to return to Ravensthorpe. To return to...him. 

_ To us. _

She follows his gaze, looking down to where a large puddle has formed beneath her as her drenched gear and hair drip with rainwater.

“I must look a sight. I am sorry if I frightened you.”

“No,” he shakes his head slowly. “No, you are… beautiful. Like the breaking of dawn following a long and terrible night on a storm-tossed sea. I could not have wished for a better waking.”

Color touches her cheeks, flushes to the tip of her nose, and she offers him a small and crooked smile.

“I will go change, and pour us some mead. The honey-waves will sooth and warm us both, I think.”

She moves to rise, but he stills her with his hand on her wrist.

“Wait.” One word, but it is a plea in itself. She understands, nodding her assent. She stands, shrugging off her cloak and mantle. Beneath it, she wears a black tunic and deerskin leggings. Both are plastered to her skin from her ride through the storm. She lets her weapons belt fall to the floor, unbuckled, and there is a heavy  _ clunk  _ of her axe falling with it. She walks around the bed, lowering herself to the empty side. When she is settled, she opens her arms, beckoning him. He moves closer, away from the dripping water and into the comfort of her embrace. She cradles him to her chest, and despite her cold and damp tunic against his cheek, he feels only warmth. He sighs, and she presses a kiss to his temple.

“Tell me of your trip to Glowecestre,” he asks, longing for further normalcy.

“I brought you a carved gourd,” she answers. “Though I’m not sure how intact it is, considering the long ride back.”

“A... carved gourd?” 

She chuckles, and the rumble of it low in her chest is pleasant against him. “It is part of a tradition for something called Samhain. Gunnar says they carve the gourds and then place candles or coals within them. They are made to welcome the spirits of loved ones who have passed, and guard against evil spirits who would do any harm.”

“Gunnar knows of these gourds?” He is far beyond curious, now.

“He was there, in Glowecestre. O, Gunnar. Our soot-cured blacksmith has found love at last.”

He snorts. “You mean  _ again.  _ This must be the fifth time. _ ”  _

Her fingers find their way into his hair, and he closes his eyes as they work. “I think perhaps it will last, this time. He is quite taken with her.”

“What sort of woman is she? A warrior? A farmer?”

“I wish I could tell you,” Eivor answers, “But I can’t understand a single word she says.”

"I think I prefer this," he murmurs, nestling his face closer against her.  
  


"And what's that?" She asks, no less tenderly.

"One love. One true thing, that would last and sustain me all my life."

-

  
  


“Randvi. Do you have a moment?” 

Randvi looks up from where she leans over a meticulously drawn map, and the lines between her brows deepen at his words.

“Sigurd,” she says, straightening her spine and meeting his eyes. “Are you well?”

“No,” he answers truthfully. “But I will be, in time. I was hoping you and I might speak, if your obligations are not pressing.”

“Of course.” She steps out from behind the desk, and together they walk from the longhouse.

The pond beside Valka’s home is perhaps the most peaceful place in Ravensthorpe. Valka herself rarely bothers with its shores, preferring the company of herbs to the fireflies that dance over the rippling waters. He comes here often, in the seemingly unending stretches of time between Eivor’s presence in the settlement. Sometimes to meditate. Other times to engage in silent conversation with the voice that is a part of him. Their clan continues to grow as alliances are made and word spreads. Despite being jarl, he leaves the coordination of new arrivals to Randvi. He has lost his appetite for such things. He stares out at the water now, at the waterfall plummeting down the rocks to crash into the pond’s edge, and lets out a long breath. Randvi waits, eyes remaining carefully on his face. She is another casualty of the words he has slung about like an ungainly sword, and though her face remains sympathetic he can sense the tension in her.

“I have been unkind to you,” he says at length. “You have lived a long and loveless life under my care. And that, more than any recent words spoken, has been the most unkind of all my deeds.”

“It has not been all so bad,” she says with a soft smile. “I have made many friends, and found purpose in my duties.”

“An empty cup, that does not satisfy your true longing.” 

She lowers her eyes, then, nodding. “It is often lonely. This much is true.”

“It would seem we love the same woman.” He says these words gently, but she flinches at them all the same. “Your feelings are ones I might sympathize with. There is little choice given, where Eivor is concerned.”

Randvi laughs softly. “So, you know. Am I so easily seen?”

“She is… compelling. I cannot blame you.”

Randvi’s gaze sharpens, sensing the concern behind his words. “Sigurd… She has stayed true to you, where I am concerned. There is no room in her heart for any  _ but _ you. In truth, I… professed my feelings, once. She made it known such a thing would have no purchase. I imagine she loved you, and you her, long before I joined the clan.”

He remembers the assumptions he first made upon his return to Ravensthorpe, and the shame of his remembered doubt sears against the underside of his skin.

_ I am equally to blame for it, _ the voice declares ruefully.  _ I believed I knew her, thought her to be someone else… and the words fueled by the pain of my own past only spread the poison further. _

“I am sorry,” he says. “Truly, Randvi. I should have fought harder to stay my father’s meddling hand. To stop our union from happening. It was not fair to you.”

“Our fates were already woven,” she answers. “And we are yet tangled amongst its threads still. For all the loneliness and heartache, I would change nothing. There is nowhere else I wish to be, than here upon these strange Saxon shores beside you and Eivor.”

“It does not pain you, to see her each day and know it will not be?” He studies her face, seeking truth, and there is only honesty there.

“No,” she replies. “For it was long ago, and much has changed since that day. I have… found peace, and solace. I do not wish for a love that will never be returned. Before you were returned to us, Eivor and I spoke of you. Of how you felt about each other. I gave her my blessing then, as I give it to you now.”

He nods, unable to respond for the gratitude within him. He is still a shadow of himself, though time and Eivor’s encouragement over the past months has returned fat to his ribs and sunlight to his world. He is not ready to take the next step forward, not yet, but the kindness in Randvi’s voice is far more than he deserves. She seems to understand his conflict, and places a hand gently on his back.

“I am truly grateful you have returned to us. Whatever our differences and the distance between us, you are dear to me. As is she.”

Long after Randvi leaves his side, he remains. He sits cross-legged on the damp moss and watches small fish nip at the water’s surface and the insects that skim across it. He closes his eyes, allowing his mind to wander, and finds peace where there was once turmoil. He and the god within him have found an ease in their coexistence. A wise voice, guiding him rather than attempting to wrest something from him.

He dreams of the broken bits of mirror each night, but more often than not, it is a dream interrupted by a sea of red flowers. Just as in the clearing, he rests his head upon Eivor’s lap. She does not sing again, but her fingers furrow through his hair and she tells him tales of her adventures throughout England. Sometimes, he finds himself smiling. Other times he is lost to his own thoughts, and her voice lowers until it is a murmur, and he sleeps. A dream within a dream. It is a place he is truly himself; the voice that shares his mind does not walk the field of flowers with him. It is a place only he and Eivor might walk, and there is comfort in it. He is not lost to himself. Not truly.

Days pass, and he and Randvi set about ending their marriage. Before a handful of witnesses, they renounce their marital bond. Firstly, in the bedroom they once shared as husband and wife. A second time, while standing before the longhouse they have shared as a home… And lastly before all the men and women they have called friend, family, brother, and sister. When it is done, Randvi places a hand on his shoulder, raises her drinking horn, and says softly;

_ “Skal, _ my friend.”

“Skal,” he echoes. And for the first time in all the long months following that fateful day in Aelfred’s tent, he finds the honey-waves in his horn to be sweet once more. 

That night, the voice speaks to him as he pulls the furs over himself.

_ It is time, _ it tells him.  _ We are ready for our final journey. It is time to go home… to where we truly belong. Where we might be ourselves again. Valhalla awaits us. _

_ What if she does not wish to go? _ He asks, the fear of such a prospect stilling his heart.

_ She will, _ Tyr answers.  _ She made a vow to be at your side for always, and she will join us in this.  _

The time has come, he knows. He cannot make any more excuses, and in truth… He does not wish to prolong the inevitable. His body has healed, his mind is focused, and he has mended the rifts of his own making here. He is at last ready to take the final step, and accept the destiny written in his blood. When Eivor returns from Wessex once more, they will go… and he will share with her all she has ever dreamed of.


	33. Chapter 33

The voice within him spoke true. She does not argue with his decision, does not beg leave of his request. She only presses her forehead to his, squeezes the back of his neck with her strong yet delicate fingers, and breathes her assent. Only with this is he able to draw breath again. Only now does color return to his world; the Bifrost set alight in blazing glory. He loathes himself for this, but he knows he would have gone without her if she said no. Above all things he knows this: there is no place for him here. Ravensthorpe holds only the ghosts of what might have been, and what can no longer be. He is ill-suited to it, to this life, as though his limbs are bound by garments too tight for the shoulders of a god. He must cast out upon the whale road, to return to his true birthright. He must see what awaits him. He is overcome by a desire to reach out and touch the thing he was born for.

_ We will be welcomed with open arms, _ Tyr croons with relief.  _ Reunited with our brothers and sisters, friends and comrades. No longer will we be stifled by this land that means to smother us. And she… she is coming with us. She is with us, until our road ends. She loves us. Look at her, Sigurd. Look at her and weep for what we have gained. _

Look at her, he does. He cradles her face with his hand and kisses her, gratitude and relief mingling within him in response to the absolute and undeserved devotion. He has asked her to abandon everything for him, and she has stepped off the precipice without so much as glancing down. Stubborn and heedless, she is - and so incredibly fearless. She melts into him, her body taking the shape of his own as their kiss deepens. It has been many long months since they embraced like this. Since their lips met, and fire heated their blood as one. He feels his own desire rising up in his chest, just as Tyr’s does. A long-hidden spring welling out from freshly broken ground, promising the torrent of an untempered river. They both love her, both want her - but neither are ready. Not yet. There is a long journey ahead still, and he would see this bond remade upon the shores that first and always belonged to them.

He has a sense of the finality in her decision. He can see it in the way she bids their clan farewell, in the resigned slump of her shoulders as she joins him in the longboat. Randvi watches them go, her gaze darkened, but he has no words for her. All he need say has been said. There is only the journey before them, now. Only their great destiny.

_ She thinks we go to our doom, _ he realizes as he studies Eivor’s face.  _ She believes we may never return, and that death awaits us. _

_ If you tell her our aims, she will remain here,  _ Tyr warns _. She will watch us set sail, and she will mourn us when the longship has dwindled to a speck on the horizon - but she will go on without us, stalwart as ever, and wither and age and die as we live on for eternity. _

And because he is selfish, and because he can accept he is lesser for it, he holds his tongue. He will not leave her to such a life. He has no gift worthy of her, save this. An eternity amidst the golden fields, fighting side by side.

-

He thinks perhaps if he focused, he might hear the beating of her heart. He can all but feel it, thrumming beneath her breastbone in response to his proximity. But to do so would mean to close his eyes, and he cannot bear the thought of shuttering them. Not when she is so close. Not when all the years have fallen away as though they were mere seconds between them. They face each other in the bed, noses nearly touching, and gaze into each other’s eyes. His hand, carried by continued greed, strokes her upper arm. Her skin gleams with the sheen of sweat in the golden light of their room. This room, once cold and dark, has found life and warmth with the roaring hearth and the heat of their bodies. It will be morning soon, and neither of them has slept. Their passion now spent, they find themselves still-reeling from all that has passed. There is the sense of both a beginning and an end, as they lie in this bed and speak without forming words. He can see she is still fearful of what lies ahead, though resolute in her vow to him.

“You are shadowed, still,” she says, her eyes searching his. “Troubled by what lies ahead. Can we not return to England, and finish together what we began?”

_ Do not speak of it, _ the voice cautions.  _ Not now, not when we stand at the threshold. _

He has not spoken of what lies before them. Not over the long journey across the sea, and not even now - ensconced here with her in this place. He is afraid to reveal it, for fear she might rescind her vow and allow him to go on alone. He could not bear it.

_ We could not bear it. _

He shakes his head. There can be no turning back. Not now, not ever again. 

“Forget all that, little drengr. The future is forward, and great wealth and unimaginable glory lie before us. I have seen this. The woman.. Fulke… In my time with her, as painful as it was, she showed me things. Things so strange and wonderful, I am almost grateful for her treachery.”

Her eyes harden at the memory, growing flinty and cold, and beneath his hand he feels a tightening of muscle. A coiling of anger. She has forgiven him for all the pain he has caused her, but he knows she will never forgive Fulke for what was done. Long after the woman’s death, hatred has darkened Eivor’s spirit.

“What she did to you was cruel beyond measure.”

“Yet with every snap of the flail, every wound carved into my flesh, every burn that seared me… And with the loss of my arm… My visions grew stronger.” He softens his voice, willing her to understand, though he knows she cannot. She is blinded by her love for him, and the hatred she harbors for the dead woman who tormented him. When she looks at him, she sees only Sigurd. She does not see his dual nature, cannot hear Tyr’s voice as it rings through his skull. Ever-present, as much a part of him now as the arm that was lost.

“That you can find any good in what was done to you is only further evidence of her cruelty. She twisted you the edge of breaking, and were you any less of a man… She might have succeeded entirely.” Her eyes are full of sorrow and regret, and she runs her fingers over his brow with a delicateness that will never cease to surprise him. Such a strange combination she is, of strength and gentleness. A warrior, with the heart of a poet. “She was as mad as the ocean is wide.”

“Even the mad ones can offer wisdom.” He kisses the point of her nose, and is rewarded by the sea-storm in her eyes withdrawing a small amount. “Their Jesus was an odd fellow. Now half the known world loves him.”

She wrinkles her nose in distaste. “Slaves, all of them, to a timid god.”

“And now look at us,” he continues. “We left these frozen shores to seek glory, and found it. England all but eats from our hands. No one believed us when we were young, and chiseled our plans under tables in mead halls. Not even my father.”

“You also chiseled a chicken with two great, hanging tits,” she laughs. “You were not so grandiose as you remember, sweet Sigurd.”

He chuckles softly, pulling her to him and squeezing her tightly. He feels somewhat drunk, his head spinning as though he has emptied a barrel of ale. Drunk on  _ her, _ and the realization of everything they have felt and dreamed of for all these years.

“I think perhaps loving you was a mistake,” he says, “For you know too many of my secrets. I’ll find no peace in your memories.”

Her reply is muffled, her face buried in his neck. “And yet, you love me still.”

“That I do,” he admits fiercely. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he can sense Tyr’s own pleasure at the remembrance. Just as Tyr’s memories are his, so, too, are his own memories now Tyr’s. Tyr - the god who is both him and  _ not _ \- relishes these moments, finding equal joy in her tales and embraces. In the curve of her lips and the light that kindles in her eyes at his touch. It once felt strange to see and share all, but now it is second nature. An effortless drawing of breath.

His grip on her softens, then, and when she lies back on the furs once more, something wrenches within him. Her eyes, sharp as Synin’s, see it. Her lips part, and her free hand slides up over his shoulder to rest there. He loves seeing her this way; her hair wild and tangled, her eyes shining fever-bright. Her lips are still swollen from the fervor of their previous joining, though no less eager when he bends his head to kiss her again. She wraps one leg around his two, drawing him closer. He runs his hand up the length of powerful thigh and over the swell of her hip, glorying in the sensation of her arching against him once more. He questions himself, in this moment, though he would never share it. For many nights as he trod a path of crimson flowers, separated by miles and her stubbornness... he told himself there was nothing he wanted more than this. More than her. But if she were to insist rather than plead they return to England, would he indulge her? Would he sacrifice his great destiny in order to keep her?

_ Would you? _ A question spoken softly from the darkest recesses of his mind. 

_ Yes, _ he answers silently, as his grip on her tightens and his kiss deepens and he loses himself in the scent of wildflowers that somehow clings to her still. For all the chaos it would stir within him, and in the face of rendering his past agonies and suffering pointless, he would. He once told her he would see the world burn for her, and the words are no less honest now. But she would never ask it of him, and so he is spared the making of such a decision. She has willfully chosen to cast aside her own destiny, whereas he has embraced his. Until he met Fulke, he could only see what he had lost. Many nights he drowned in his own bitterness, steeping in it until the flavor of it filled his mouth with its acrid bite. Mourning his stolen birthright and the shores that should have belonged to him. A king without a crown, a vikingr without a home. Now, he stands at the precipice of gaining everything. Infinite knowledge and power. He only hopes when she sees what lies in store for him - for them - she will remain at his side.  _ Valhalla. _ The eternal golden field, and he - a god amongst other gods - freed of his mortal shackles at last. All save for one. The only one he would keep.

_ As would I, _ Tyr echoes.  _ As would I. _

In this realization, all else falls away. Even Tyr falls silent, stepping into shadow once more that they might be alone. Her hips lift to meet him, her moan at the pressure of him against her silenced by the demands of his lips pressed to hers. Their tongues twine like twisting vines, powerful hands clutching at him as she parts around him. He moves within her, losing himself in her responses to him. He savors every sigh and shiver, every moan and twitch and shudder. Muscle coiling and loosening beneath him, veins twisting beneath the delicate skin of her neck as she throws her head back. He follows the pathway of each one with his tongue, his pace far slower and more deliberate this time. He would have this last forever, plummeting with her until the sea rose up to swallow them both. They are living their last minutes as mortals. Soon, Midgard will be only another memory.

-

He sits cross-legged before the lake that stretches far and wide, reflecting the sun like a gilded mirror; the golden fields of Valhalla its frame. The water laps at his ankles, reminding him again of the waters of memory. Perhaps these are them, in their true form - no longer altered by the beauty of dreams, though he has no need of them now. He remembers everything, and yet somehow he is still himself. There is enough space for both he and Tyr, and they share one hugr as one trades a jug of mead back and forth. They both love her. Not as Havi - for she has chosen her own path - but as Eivor. Tyr, justice-bringer, sees much of himself in her. He appreciates her for her honorable spirit, even as Sigurd has clashed with it in light of his own pursuits. He smiles to himself now, allowing his fingers to dip into the warm waters before him. Two spirits, both equally besotted. Neither of them had any hope of a different fate. It was woven long ago, on a narrow dirt path leading up to a mountain spring.

He wonders if it would be so, were it not for her. If Tyr - the presence in the back of his mind pushing, pushing for more purchase - would not have encompassed him if given the strength and opportunity. He felt himself teetering on the edge of such undoing several times following his long imprisonment at Fulke’s hands. Each time, when he thought he might lose himself, Eivor wrenched him back with stubborn hands. She would not let him leave, would not let him fully assume the mantle of godhood. There is a strange relief in the realization. She not only pushes Odin from her mind, but through her determination she has ensured his own mind is intact. Shared, rather than surrendered.

Footsteps approach, and he does not need to turn his head. He knows who has come to this shore. A smile curves his lips.

“The feast has begun in earnest, and yet here you are. Who will drink the bottomless mead dry, if not you?” 

Fingertips squeeze his shoulder, and he automatically tilts his head to rest it against her arm.

“I was wondering when you’d seek me out,” he sighs. “I can never hide for long.”

“Your arm has returned to you once more,” she observes. “But your mood remains as dark as the bottom of this lake.”

“It always returns,” he answers gloomily. “Forgive me. My mind is… elsewhere.”

She removes her hand from his shoulder, settling onto the shore beside him and joining in staring out at the sun-tipped ripples of water.

“And where is your mind, if not dwelling upon these golden fields and the honey-waves awaiting you?”

_ I am dwelling on all I have gained, even as I fear I am losing it,  _ he wants to say. 

He is losing her to doubt. He knows this. It is a seed he feels growing within himself as well, though he forces it down into the same shadowed place as his memories of Fulke. With each new day, the light in her eyes grows dimmer and her joy more reluctant. She is slipping through his fingers like water, and no matter how tightly he presses his fingers together, the pool held within them diminishes with every passing moment. In the beginning, it was everything he hoped it would be. The golden fields stretched out before them just as in their stories, and side by side they fought against or alongside the other einherjar. He has strength, here. Strength like he has never known. He is complete, both in body and spirit - and there is such  _ freedom _ in holding his sword with both hands again, and feeling the weight of it against his palms. The shock of each blow reverberating up the steel blade and through his arms is a song, humming throughout his blood.

And yet...each day, he loses his arm in battle. At first he tells himself it is a coincidence. That he has forgotten what it felt like to have his right arm, and is only clumsy with its return. But only the first two times. And then he begins to fear it is some great jest at his expense. That all the other gods save Freyja do not show their faces, for they are watching from afar and laughing loudly as he stumbles and falls in battle.  _ O, Tyr, _ they must say.  _ Look at him. Still burdened by his memories of flesh.  _ Perhaps they mean to remind him of his time as a mortal, when his memories were locked away as his body dwindled in tandem with the sands of time. Each time he loses it, Eivor rushes to his side. And each time her eyes rest on the bloodied grass and his newly severed arm, her eyes darken further.

_ She sees, _ Tyr whispers.  _ She knows we are doomed to the repetition of our fate. Over and over we will lose what was already lost. There can be no escaping it. Not even here, in the place we once called home. _

_ No, _ he wants to beg. For he fears her doubt. It threatens to strip away what he - what they - have only just gained.  _ Think nothing of it. It is only the echoes of my fate as a god, resounding even here. Nothing more. It is only a minor thing. A grain of sand in one’s boot. It is a tiny price to pay in exchange for all this. _

But as time wears on, the struggle to convince himself otherwise becomes arduous indeed. He laughs too loud at the feast table, drinks far too much mead. He overcompensates to quell his troubled spirit, and knows he can only do it for so long. The further Eivor withdraws, the more urgently he pulls her back. He can’t face leaving, and without her, he would not stay. Neither he nor Tyr wish to experience any of this without her.

In this place, his arm and his strength are returned to him. He has the power of a god, and all that he wishes for is within his reach. He should be nothing but joyous, but with each bite of steel into his arm, with each loss of it, and each flicker of doubt in Eivor’s eyes... he feels his dreams ebbing to a place beyond reaching. A tide, pulling away and leaving him on a barren shore. She holds her tongue and stills her doubts out of love for him, he knows. Were he anyone else she would not hesitate to speak her mind.  _ He _ diminishes her courage to do what she knows is right. It has always been so. There is guilt in this realization, for she has sacrificed much already. She has followed him to this place, knowing there is no return. That this is the end of their road as much as it is the beginning.

“Nothing, little drengr,” he answers at last. “Only the mind-wanderings of a man too long without mead. Shall we go, then, and join the others?”

Her smile is muted, her perceptive eyes seeing through his words, but she only nods and climbs to her feet once more. He is not the only one who is troubled. He heard her calling her father’s name on the battlefield today, saw her run towards the man she thought she recognized only to find a stranger where he stood. The years have not blunted the pain of that loss, of that betrayal…and her yearning for what might have been is clear in her eyes and written into the lines of her face. He remembers a time with less lines. A time when, in the wake of Kjotve’s death, she was at peace. The years in England and all she has lost have etched themselves into her skin, burrowed deep in her heart. She has no more found true peace here than he, and it feels as though he has failed her yet again.

She leaves the evening’s feasting early. He is in the midst of a grand tale about the time he and Eivor slew a dozen of Kjotve’s men twice their size when he spies her retreating back. She has drunk no mead, shared no tales, and joined in no songs this night. He feels as though he is plummeting down a long and fathomless abyss, waiting for the ground to rise up to meet him. A stony floor that will not come.  _ I am losing her, _ he thinks again. The mead turns sour on his tongue, and though he finishes his telling with considerably less bravado, he does not miss the fact that the drengr before him cheer and stomp and hammer their fists upon the table with no less enthusiasm. Enthusiasm with a false ring that seeps into his bones like Jormungandr’s venom, poisoning his blood. 

When he closes his eyes and uses his power to conjure up Varin, he tells himself it is for her. That he wants nothing more than for her to be truly happy. Pretty words he tells himself, even as he loathes them, for there is no truth to them. He cannot bear the thought of her leaving. He does not wish to live out an eternity here alone, broken and bleeding once more at each battle’s end. He needs her, and so he manifests the one thing that might keep her here; a father returned. 

She is sitting on her bed, turning a dagger over in her fingers, when he enters her room. 

“Eivor, you have a guest!” he tells her with cheer he does not feel.

“You should have knocked, first,” she murmurs, eyes not leaving the blade in her hands. Her mood is dark indeed.

“Do not be churlish,” he chides, gesturing. “I brought you someone. Look!”

Varin walks through the doorway and past him, arms spreading wide in joy at the sight of her.

_ “My Eivor! _ There you are! What a warrior you have made of yourself! I am overfilled with pride!”

She fixes her gaze on Varin for a long moment before allowing it to slide over to Sigurd. There is anger sparked in her eyes, burning like embers within a fire. He begins to doubt himself, then. He expected a different reaction. A more favorable one.

“How did you find yourself here?” She asks, each word slow and deliberate. Clouds on the horizon, a brewing storm.

“You remember our great battle!” Varin declares. “You remember how we fought, side by side, with your mother and Sigurd and our clans united!”

“We fought, father. But you did not. You died a coward.”

“Eivor,” he steps forward, sensing his plan is crumbling apart at his feet. “Enjoy this. Your father is returned to you.”

She does not answer him with words, but stands in one smooth motion and throws the knife she still holds. It hurtles through the air, embedding itself in Varin’s eye. He falls heavily, a great oak felled by an axe, and does not rise.

Her shoulders are heaving with anger, the embers in her eyes now twin pyres, burning for what has been lost. He stares at the body, at the pool of blood already surrounding Varin’s head.

“Have you lost all your love for life?” he asks, lifting his eyes to hers.

_ “That _ was not my father,” she spits. “That was a lie.”

“I thought this was what you wanted,” he manages to say, awash with regret over his manipulation. “I have power in this place. I can create anything you wish, fulfill your every desire. He was... my gift to you.”

Her eyes bore into him, through him, piercing him like two frost-spears. “There is only one thing I wish for, and it does not require the hand of a god. Only the god himself.”


	34. Chapter 34

He seeks joy in battle, a desperate effort, pulling her along beside him as he marches towards the golden fields. The battle horn sounds, low and throbbing, and she follows... but there is reluctance in her every step. Conjuring Varin was a mistake. It has tipped a delicate scale.

_ She does not want this, _ Tyr whispers. _ And neither do you. Not truly. _

_ Be silent, _ he hisses in return.  _ This is all there is left. _

She joins in the fighting, wary and wooden in her movements. They become separated by the surging crowd of clashing einherjar, and he unleashes all his doubt and worry and fear into the great sweeps of his sword. His blade cleaves through muscle and bone, and as it does flashes of memory flit through his mind.

_ I will fight… as a thresher through a field of wheat.  _ Blindly following orders, charging into battle. Reverent in his adherence to them, and the man who has spoken them.

_ From the beginning, he was a sweet boy. But our mistrust and cruelty have robbed the young man of his sweetness and life.  _ A man hardly stepped free of his youth, bound cruelly. Silver eyes peering out at him from behind a curtain of shaggy black hair.

_ From the life-tree we go. To the life-tree we shall one day return.  _ A draining, an emptying. Fear of an ending, as the world tears itself apart.

Memories, striking at him with a ferocity equal to the blades that slash and bite at his skin. An axe buries itself in the crook of his arm, separating tendons and scoring bone, and he is once more being split apart by Fulke’s vicious and deft hands. 

_ Fingers twitching, spasming, their dying movements only serving to further kindle the mad fire in her eyes.  _

_ No, gods, no, not again, my arm, my fucking arm. _

Words that he speaks aloud even as he screams them in his head, the wound as fresh upon his spirit as it is upon his body.

“The arm,” he hears himself moan. “The arm! Always the fucking arm!”

“Sigurd.” A gentle voice, one he knows well. Not the voice of one who commands him, but of one who loves him. Fingers gripping his chin, lifting his face. Frost-rings framed by sun-tipped lashes. Her lips. Lips he has kissed a hundred, a thousand times, forming words. “This is an illusion. A trick. Leave with me now, and return to England. Our people need us.”

_“No.”_ He cannot believe it, does not want to. He shrugs free of her, shaking his head vehemently. “I am no one in that world. I am somebody here. Powerful, capable, a god. Here I may live forever. Here, I cannot die.”

Can she not see what has been taken from him? Can she not understand his reasoning for wishing to remain here? A place where he is whole, complete. A place where his strength is returned to him, his glory sure.

_ She does not want this. _

Pressure against his chest. Her hand flat against him, anchoring him to the world once more. Drawing him back, as she has time and again.

“You are someone to me,” Eivor whispers. “You are  _ my _ world. All things must die, Sigurd. It is the way of the world. What matters is the life you have lived before the valkyries take you, and I… Am not ready to bring what could be to an end. Not yet. We have only just begun our saga.”

_ She does not want this. _

Again, he ignores Tyr, forcing the small voice into the back of his mind. “We have everything here, Eivor.  _ Everything.”  _

Sadness fills her eyes, her fingertips pressing harder into him. “Every day here is the same empty war, the same hollow victory. Spilling blood that tastes of water and smells of grass. You have known real battle, tasted true glory. But this is not it. You know this. I know you do. It is time to leave.”

“Am I destined to follow you everywhere? For the rest of my life?”

He cannot help it. The words tumble from him, remembrances of a time he doubted her. Doubted her love for him, suspected her of seeking only glory for herself. He thought himself free of these terrible thoughts, but they plague him still. Poison, flowing through the chambers of his heart.

“I would follow  _ you.” _ There is no anger in her voice, no flare of temper or flash of her eyes. She is calm, sure, gentle. “From here to the true end, I will always be at your side, Sigurd. To Valhalla and beyond it.” 

_ This place is not worth it, _ Tyr tells him.  _ Not worth losing her. Let it go, Sigurd. Let it all go. Return home with her. Love her, for all the days you have life. There is nothing greater than this. _

“All right,” he agrees at last. He is weary of this place, though his heart is reluctant to admit it. “We go.”

Her lips part as her eyes brighten, and she looks as though she might kiss him, kneeling amidst the golden fields of Valhalla. The air shimmers about her, and she turns her head as though in response to a voice, and then… she is gone. One moment she is before him, the next she is no longer there. His cheek is still warm from where she held it, the grass where she knelt still pressed flat from her weight.

“Eivor?” He asks, turning his head this way and that, his newly severed arm forgotten.

_ Something is wrong,  _ Tyr warns.  _ She needs us. We must go to her.  _

_ How?  _ He asks stupidly.

_ Reach out to her,  _ Tyr instructs.  _ Just as you always have, in dreams. The connection you share will guide your way.  _

He closes his eyes, focusing. He skims through his memories, seeking the strands of fate that have woven them together. He can almost see them - a thick weave of poppy-red threads, haphazard but beautiful. He reaches out, plucks at one with his fingertips.

_ Eivor’s lips pressed to his neck, her hands in his hair. The heat of her mouth against his skin threatens to undo him, and his step falters. He presses her to his chest, tighter still, reluctant to wake from this strange dream in which he straddles two worlds. This dream is the only place she might truly be his, and he is desperate for only a handful of moments more. _

He seeks another thread, tugs at it.

_ She rises to meet him, and her eyes burn like the cold blue fires of Helheim beneath his touch. Tomorrow, they go forth to fight Kjotve - but tonight, they belong only to each other. He presses his body to hers, cradles her jaw, rocking himself into her. Her lips part beneath his, her hair spilling upon the ground like scattered moonlight. He looms over her, a great wolf determined to swallow the sun - and the sun begs for his fangs upon her neck. Shadows fill the hollows of her throat, contour her bared skin; casting themselves in shifting shapes over the dips and narrows of her body. He obliges the sun, his lips devouring her as their fingers interlace, the backs of her hands pressed into the soft earth. Crimson petals scatter beneath their twining bodies, cling to her damp skin and wild hair, and she is so beautiful, so gods-cursedly beautiful, his heart threatens to stop beating. _

His fingers unravel still further.

_ A shadow burns in the sky where the sun once hung. He cannot tear his eyes away from it, even knowing the ring of sun-shadow may be forever burned into the depths of his eyes. It is only her, walking across the sea of bruised flower petals, that draws him away from the lure of Ragnarok. Eivor, clad in an ethereal gown woven from the substance of clouds, her hair billowing loose about her. She pulls him from the edge of the end of all things, wraps her arms about him and demands he return. He has no choice but to follow her, to allow their spirits to join and twist amidst the destruction of their shared place. _

_ Her head on his shoulder as they share memories of days long past. When he was Sigurd the Great, a sprawling lad of strange proportions and she was Eivor the Spritely. Best friends. Companions. A boy she saw as a god, and a girl that worshipped her god. _

This thread is tangled, knotted. He knows which one it is without touching it, fears it, but presses on.

_ Her voice calling to him, searching for him. Unable to find him for the storm raging about them. A storm of pain, of rage, of terror that stinks of soured sweat and piss and blood. He can hear her, feel her presence - but Fulke’s cruel fingers twist him, bend him, shape him, until he cannot hear anything save for his own screams. She tried to come to him, but Fulke barred the way. He sees this now, in the tangled thread he holds. _

All this he sees, and more. Memories rise to the surface like poison from a festering wound, punctured by a sharp point and allowed to flow after months of fever. He has held her a thousand times, kissed her ten thousand more. He would find her anywhere, even within this construct. This… false Valhalla. He follows the scent of wildflowers down a long and dark corridor. There is no light here, save for a slip of it shining through the crack of two great doors. She is just beyond them, he is certain. He can sense her, as though she is not at the end of this dark corridor but beside him. Pressed to him. He can feel her heart racing against him, feel her pulse beneath his lips. His fingertips remember the curve of muscle, the down of soft hairs on the backs of her thighs. He could recite every rune tattooed across her chest, as though she were standing perfectly still as he called each one out. She is here, beyond those doors, and she  _ needs him.  _

He begins to run, and the closer he gets the more he is certain he can hear the clash of weapons. Of her, fighting not only for her life but for herself. For the right to remain who she is. For possession of herself, and her hugr. Odin is not like Tyr, not content to coexist for the sake of both their happiness. He wants her. Wants to inhabit her, consume her, burn her away like dead grass beneath a firestorm that he might live anew. He knows this, Tyr knows this, and together they remember the truth of their oldest friend.

He cares only for himself. He would - no, has - sacrificed everyone and everything he professed to love for the sake of himself. For knowledge, for power, for self-gain. They are not the threshers, but the wheat itself. They have always been meant to fall before him should the time come. Let none stand but the great Havi, the ruler of all. Selfish and twisted, paranoid and greedy. A tyrant among men.

_ Silver eyes glaring up at him through shaggy dark hair. Eyes that once regarded him with love, with trust. He was a mentor to the boy. A trusted friend. As close as family and as dear as an uncle. He betrayed this boy, when the time came. Left him to die in the cold and the dark and the damp of his prison, that Odin might have his peace. _

He will not betray her. He will not leave her to fight alone against the god who would drive her to the gates of Helheim.

_Stop him,_ Tyr urges. _Save her._ _I did not have the courage to do what I should have. This is your chance to change what I did. To change everything._

-

He wakes first, gasping as the tree of life releases him from its embrace. He stumbles as he resumes the burden of his weight once more, his feet unsteady and wavering as though he has slept for many days. He feels weak from hunger, his tongue coated in sand within his mouth. The conspicuous ache of his missing arm is returned to him, the severed joint protesting the cold surrounding him. He looks up to where Eivor still hangs, his heart pounding in the back of his throat.

“Wake up, little drengr,” he whispers. “I am waiting for you.”

Arms seize him from behind, a sharp blade presses to his throat. He goes very still, aware that any sudden movement might serve to end his life.

“Why does she not wake?” A familiar voice growls at his ear.

“Basim?” Sigurd blinks, still disoriented. “Have you gone mad? Release me at once.”

“I won’t be doing that,” Basim snaps. “We will wait, together, until she wakes. I have waited far too long for this moment to allow you to interfere.”

There is a metallic clicking as the branch holding Eivor suspended begins to move. Basim lets out a long, hissing breath as it lowers her to the ground. He pulls Sigurd back with him, moving to flank the motionless figure.

“Make one sound, and I will spill your blood. The first thing she sees upon waking will be the light leaving your eyes.”

“She will kill you for this,” he warns. “You would provoke her blade?”

“Oh, I would,” Basim laughs, and it is the harsh and bitter sound of a man who has been bent by many years of longing and hatred. “I welcome it. Let the Mad One try to best me.”

They wait in silence as the tree’s great branch finishes its descent, releasing her and allowing her to tumble to the floor. She is as disoriented as he was upon waking, staggering to her feet and shaking the cobwebs from her mind.

“Sigurd?” She calls, and the fearful tone of it wrenches at his heart as it echoes through the great temple surrounding them. “Are you with me?”

“Ah, the hanged one wakes!” Basim calls in greeting, his grip tightening. “Feet upon the ground once more!”

Despite the Hidden One’s warning, Sigurd cannot be silent.

“Eivor, be careful!” He shouts. She turns, eyes seeking him out. Her brow furrows at the sight of him held in Basim’s grip, and the knife pressed to his throat.

“Basim?” She asks, striding towards them. “What is this?”

“Come closer, Eivor! Let me get a better look at you!” The knife point digs deeper, and Sigurd winces. 

“What quarrel do you have with him? With me?” There is hurt in her voice. The sting of betrayal. For years, he has been a friend to the clan. First to Sigurd, and then to her.

“Closer,” is Basim’s only reply. “Ah, yes. You are younger, now. Far prettier than the greybeard I remember. No small wonder I did not recognize you.”

Her eyes flick uncertainly from Sigurd to Basim. “Leave him be,” she says uncertainly. “He has done nothing to you.”

Basim ignores her. “For too long, I stared at the sun,” he muses. “It blinded me to the truth. That it was you. It was  _ you _ I wanted all along.”

“And here I am,” she answers, voice hardening, spreading her arms wide. “Did you track us here, then? Like a cowardly fox, concealed in the brush?”

“You widowed my destiny, Wolf-Kissed!” Basim roars. “You broke all my hopes!”

“I have no knowledge of such ill doings,” she snarls. “But I would widow your head from your body, if you do not let him go.”

“The irony,” Basim sneers. “That even in this life, you would find each other. And he would again cleave to you, casting all else aside to bend beneath your great shadow.”

_ We know him.  _ Tyr’s voice is strained, as though coming from somewhere far-off.  _ We know him, and he knows us.  _

“Do not worry about me, little drengr,” he tells her. Wills her to see that all will be well, whatever happens to him. “Silence him, and let us be free of this place.”

“Yes, come, Eivor. Come save your crippled prince of dead ravens!” Basim pivots, twists, throwing him to the hard stone floor. He feels the base of his skull crack against the cold stone, feels hot tendrils of pain curl through the base of his neck. His vision darkens, but he can hear the sound of running feet. Basim, seeking higher ground no doubt.

“Sigurd!” The weight of her against his side as she falls to her knees. “Are you hurt?” Gentle hands, touching his face, checking him for injury.

“Go,” he manages to whisper. “Find him. This is... nothing.”

Nothing, he says, as dark waters close over his head. He is grateful for the stone beneath him. It holds him steady as the world turns, tilts, and plunges him into darkness.

  
  


When his eyes open again, it is to the sight of Basim running towards him. The man’s curved sword is drawn and raised, shining wickedly in the light, and murder gleams in his dark eyes. He manages to roll out of the way just in time, the sword’s edge clanging against stone. When his hand grasps for the hilt of the sword at his back, he finds nothing. He remembers, now. He left his sword on the longboat, thinking he would never have need of it again. Where Eivor kept all her weapons, prepared to flee at the first sign of trouble, he shed all his possessions like a damp cloak. All he has left is the small axe at his belt, forgotten in his hurry to see his great destiny realized. It will be about as useful as a feather against a gale in a fight against Basim, but he pulls it free regardless.

Basim strikes again. Sigurd parries, and the force of the blow against the haft of the small axe makes his bones creak in answer. Shockwaves ripple up his arm, pain shoots through his fingers, and he damns himself for his weakness. Even now, after all the months of Eivor’s pushing, he is not the vikingr he was once. He is no match for this man, once his friend but now taken by madness. Worry spears his heart.  _ Eivor. _ Where is she?

More blows rain down on him, and it is all he can do to twist clear or parry. He is too slow, and the curved blade hooks beneath the blade of his axe and wrenches it free. It hurtles through the air to clatter harmlessly. Basim strikes him, and once more Sigurd goes sprawling. His head, already tender from the last blow struck to it, aches with a new blooming of pain. He glares up at Basim, prepared to die. If this man has slain Eivor, then he would join her wherever her spirit has gone. Be it Valhalla, or whatever truly awaits them.

“Sigurd!” Her voice pierces the darkness, though she is far across the temple still. Too far away to intervene. Despite this, his heart soars, fire returning to his limbs. She is alive, she is safe, she is whole.

“You will die here, oath breaker,” he warns Basim, pushing himself up onto his knees.

Basim shakes his head, and Sigurd is surprised by the sudden and terrible sadness in the man’s eyes. “This brings me no joy, justice-bringer. You were always so kind.” A gloved hand tightens about the curved sword’s hilt, and again he raises it high. “But you chose the wrong side.”

_ This is our doing,  _ Tyr mourns.  _ We cast a stone, and even now the ripples of it pursue us. _

Sigurd raises his chin, steels himself, prepared for the killing blow. Even if he dies here, she will avenge him. There is comfort in the knowing. The blade begins its descent, and he follows it with his eyes. There is a loud  _ clang,  _ as something hurtling through the air strikes the sword and sends it askew from its trajectory. Basim’s head jerks to the side, nostrils flaring.

“I am your prize, Basim,” Eivor’s voice rings out. Her eyes flick to Sigurd briefly, assessing any damage done, before returning to the Hidden One. “Come.”

Basim shrugs his shoulders, rolling the muscles in them, and hefts his sword. 

“You are indeed,” he agrees, moving away from Sigurd to circle her warily. “Surprising, that you would protect him now, when in the past you used him as a shield. Time changes many things; wears stone down into sand, shifts rivers to carve new pathways. But you… You do not change. Come, then. Pick him up from where he has fallen. Use him to stay my blade from your own flesh. Show your true nature, Mad One. Let me see it before I kill you.”

“What madness has taken you, Basim?” She snarls. “You speak in riddles, hint at vague shadows. How long has your heart been turned against us?”

“It turned against you when your own turned against me,” Basim shouts, lunging. “I loved you as family,  _ trusted _ you, would have given you everything, and you slid your knife into my back and watched me  _ bleed.” _

They clash, steel against steel. The sounds of it echo off the cavernous walls around them. She is as strong as Basim, arms flexing and teeth bared beneath the onslaught. They fight in earnest, now, Basim with the speed of a man bent by fury and she with the determination of one who has something she would die to protect.

He seizes upon the distraction, staggering to his feet once more. The orb. He must activate the orb, and send Basim into the world they have just left. There, he can do no more harm. Perhaps he may even find the peace this life has so denied him. His fragmented memories refuse to coalesce into something substantial. He knows this man, he is sure of it - but the name eludes him, and Tyr’s silence only proves equal puzzlement.

He hears a cry, a hoarse yell of pain, as his hand slams down on the orb and brilliant light sears his eyes. He turns away from it, bright spots dancing before his vision as he seeks a familiar shape on the platform below. Eivor stumbles back as the tree of life lifts Basim away, now limp as a child’s straw doll. He can hear her sucking in her breath, great ragged gulps of air as she hunches over, hands on her knees. He takes the steps two at a time, rushing back to where she now stands. 

“Does he still live?” She whispers, eyes remaining on the dangling form above them.

“He does” he answers. “But in darkness.”


	35. Chapter 35

The longboat rocks beneath him, though it is a gentle motion and not borne of a torrent as it was in their first journey back to Norway. The sky is deep and clear overhead, pinpricks of light spanning it from end to end. Stars, winking their greetings to each other as more and more appear to join their brothers and sisters in the night. The moon hangs low and heavy, bathing the world in its silver light. The oarsmen are all asleep as well. There is murmuring, snoring, the occasional twitch or body rolling. Otherwise, it is quiet. Only Sigurd is awake, sitting a silent vigil in the midst of the night-blackened sea.

He lowers his eyes from the stars above to return them to the true wonder before him. The woman who sleeps soundly, lashes fluttering in response to her dreams, her head ensconced in his lap. Now and then she shifts, seeking a more favorable position to alleviate the pain in her side. Basim drove his blade deep into her ribs, though by some miracle it struck nothing vital. He wonders if the lack of severity was intentional. If, in the end, Basim saw her for what she is - Eivor the Wolf-Kissed, and no other. He hopes such a thing is true. It would lessen the sting of betrayal. Not only for himself, but for her. He would see her spared this final agony. Over the years at his side, she has carried the burden of insurmountable grief and pain and betrayal. In many of her darkest hours, he was not there for her. Could not be, whether by distance or by his own torment. It is a failure, a shame, he will bear all his life.

The herb woman in Alrekstad was capable enough, cleansing the wound and stitching is closed with sturdy twine. It will hold, though the healing will be a slow process. He pulls the furs closer about her, ensuring she is warm enough, and rests his hand on her moon-bleached braids. They are half-undone, more than a few of the gleaming silver rings making their escape over the long journey. In truth, more than a couple of them still rest beneath a bed in a certain tavern. He claimed he could not see them, though they winked at him cheerily from their dark and dusty grave. She might complain over the length of her hair, often threatening to chop it free with the blade of her axe, but he does not fear her words. She would never dream of it, knowing his fondness for her silken tresses.

In the clarity of this quiet moment, as he gazes upon a face kissed by moonlight, he knows he will marry her. He has lost all desire for glory, for greatness. He no longer cares about the saga he will write. The urge to be more, to seek more, the wanderlust that has plagued him all his life... has leeched from his bones over the long and arduous months following his imprisonment. Valhalla, and the stinging blow of its falsehood, has sapped all the strength he had left. There is nothing beyond this life, no great reward, and the knowing of it drives a new and different sort of yearning. He wants more, but it is not to be found in the claiming of lands or the jingle of gold and silver. The  _ more  _ he seeks is Eivor. The only thing he wants now is her. To build a new life with her, and see their clan grow and flourish beneath her more steady hand. He welcomes the thought of a peaceful life. Strangely enough, he can almost understand his father’s yearning for peace above all else. The chaos of the past two years has changed him, shifted his focus. He wishes only for a life of true meaning and substance.

_ There is no room for me in this, my friend, _ a familiar voice says.  _ Your life and your fate should be your own. _

_ Ah,  _ he answers,  _ but we are bound together, are we not? You are me, as I am you. Invisible cords tie us together.  _

He can sense Tyr’s hesitation, a feeling of regret that rises in the back of his own throat, stilling his heart for two beats.

_ No. If you wish it, your hugr may belong to you and you alone once more. I have no desire to take what is not rightfully mine. There was a time I might have, in my desperation to live on… but such a longing has left me. I want only peace. Not only for myself, but for you. It is a thing hard-won, in all the trials you have faced. _

He considers this silently for a moment.  _ You would leave me willingly? You would cast yourself into eternal shadow, that I might be myself once more?  _

_ Yes. I would do this for you. For… her. I would do this, that she might have joy again. It would take a gentle push, nothing more. She drove Odin from her mind through sheer willpower and strength, as we saw… but it would not be the same for you. I go willingly, whereas he held on with an iron grip to the bitter end. _

There is a strange and desolate feeling in the knowledge that Tyr, a constant presence in his mind all these long months, might be pushed aside as easily as brushing dust from a ledge. There is also freedom in it, and relief. To know that should he wish it, he might be free of the last remnant of Fulke’s torture. For while he has grown into this strange twilight of godhood and mortality, it is a continuous reminder of his suffering. Of all the nights when he curled about his pain in the dark and damp, with only Tyr’s voice to comfort him. Tyr, who felt the pain just as Sigurd felt it. Who suffered alongside him, a companion in all things good or ill.

_ No,  _ he decides.  _ I would not have you leave. You say there is no room for you in this, but there is. For you love her as I love her. You feel as I feel. We are one in all things, now, and to lose you would be the same as losing my remaining arm. Stay, and be welcome in it. _

_ The Aesir were wrong about the men and women of Midgard,  _ Tyr muses.  _ You are capable of such great things. Some terrible, some awe-inspiring, and some… humbling. Even for a god. I am not worthy of this, though I am grateful for it. I will stay, for as long as you would have me. And should the time come for you to send me on my final journey, I will welcome it gladly. It was worth it, for the time I was given to see through your eyes. _

And just like that, the shards of broken mirror begin to fall into place. One by one they fit together, seams shining a gleaming silver for a suspended moment, then melting into a seamless surface once more. He looks into the reflection, and sees a man with two faces - but it no longer disquiets him. No longer leaves him with an ache in his belly, or a sense of something lost. His fingers are intact, the pads of them whole and unbloodied. A mirror that no longer tears him apart. 

“I know who I am,” he whispers aloud. Words once spoken in anger, long ago. Ugly and twisted, but no longer. There is truth to them, and it is not the truth he once thought it to be. “I know my destiny.”

She shifts, restless, murmuring in her sleep. He strokes the smooth skin of her temple, returning the stray strands of hair to the shining mass spread like liquid moonlight over his lap. Her lips curve into a soft smile, and though she does not wake, she curls more securely against him. 

This is  _ more. _

This is  _ everything. _

-

  
  


He can hardly believe he is lying here beside her. He wonders if this is a dream, or a true version of Valhalla. Perhaps this is what lies at the end of everything. No battle, no blood-drenched fields. No golden fields flattened beneath the drum of many boots. If everything else they once believed is wrong, false… Then perhaps so, too, is all concept of an afterlight as they know it. Maybe there is only this, and her, and a lifetime stretching out like a smooth river. Words from the night before still hum through his blood, stirring a wellspring of emotions beneath his breast.

_ I’ll not wear a gown, lord, _ she told him.  _ Nor will I weave posies in my hair. _

Her eyes are closed now, a smile upon her lips, as he carefully places one wildflower after another amidst her tangled tresses.

“Will there be any flowers remaining for the bees, when you are finished?” She asks, not opening her eyes.

“Perhaps not,” he answers without remorse, pressing a kiss to one bare shoulder. “But it does not matter. Their hearts will not remain on their task, when such a vision distracts them.”

They are in the clearing that belongs only to them. In their long absence, the flowers have only redoubled their efforts. Seeds have sprung forth amidst the grass they once sparred on, some blooms only as tall as mid-calf, others high enough they brush against thighs. They have hollowed out a space for themselves, a cocoon amidst the waves of crushed pink and rich gold and bright white centered with yellow. Lying here, side by side, they can see nothing but each other and the open sky.

“You are truly horrible,” she answers without malice. The smile widens, and her eyes open as he places the final daisy. It is reluctant to weave through her hair, choosing instead to fall over her forehead. “Why do I endure this torture?”

“Because you love me, as I love you. And so you are given to my whims of fancy.” He grins, placing a kiss on the tip of her nose.

A shadow crosses over her eyes, as sudden as a spring tempest blowing over the hills. Something has been working at her this day, twisting beneath the surface of her skin, tempering her joy with a touch of sorrow. He has waited for her to speak of it, knowing she will reveal her secret thoughts in her own time. He sees now that she is ready, and waits.

“Sigurd,” she breathes at last, and her voice is low and soft. A ray of morning sun falls over her face as she turns her head to look at him, the blue rings of her eyes blanching to a milky azure from the illumination. “I would ask you something.”

“Ask whatever your heart wishes to know,” he answers, propping himself up on his elbow.

“Your memory is far better than mine,” she says hesitantly. “I was only nine winters when… When my parents…” She trails off, seeming to gather herself. “I can’t remember them, Sigurd. Not truly. I cannot remember my mother’s voice or my father’s eyes. They are vague forms in my hugr, and with each winter they grow more formless. I am afraid I will forget their faces. Forget  _ them. _ Will you tell me what you remember of them?”

Sorrow fills his heart. “Of course I will, little drengr. What brought this yearning? Why now, after all this time?”

“I never thought to be married,” she confesses. “And now that you and I are to be wed, I am lost in thoughts of what might have been. My mother, my father, they did not live to see this day. They will not look on from the depths of Helheim or the feast-table of Odin as I am joined to you. There is no Valhalla, no Helheim. They are simply gone, dust and crumbling bone. Now, more than ever, I feel that loss.”

He leans forward, presses a lingering kiss to her temple. He does not have words that will lessen the pain. He lost his own mother at a young age, just one winter older than Eivor was when she lost hers. He knows her pain, has felt it keenly within himself, but whereas she was left entirely alone… He had his father. He had his clan. Her family, her clan, were slaughtered by Kjotve and his men. In the wake of so much loss, she had nothing left. Nothing, save him.

“Your mother had freckles,” he says after a long moment, delving into his own memory. “Scattered across her nose, dusting her shoulders and arms. Sometimes, Varin would threaten to kiss each and every one, saying it might take him years to finish the task. You did not inherit her freckles, but… you have her cheekbones, her chin. Her inquisitive nature. She feared nothing, reaching out to the unknown rather than withdrawing. She had soft brown hair, and always wore it in a high braid. She was shorter than you, more slender. A small but ferocious bird. In battle, she fought like a dragon. Fast and light, swift and terrible. She could be soft-spoken as needed, and would often hold you in her arms and tell you tales of the gods. You most loved the ones about the trickster, Loki. I suspect because you were also a little trickster, and found inspiration in them.”

He smiles softly at the memory of Rosta, somewhat surprised by how much he still remembers. Tears swim in Eivor’s eyes, but do not fall. 

“She was delicate and graceful in all the ways your father was large and clumsy,” he concludes. “He loved her deeply, and she loved him in equal measure.”

“I remember…” She says hesitantly, then pauses. She swallows, forcing her emotion down. “I remember him telling me… That his greatest wish for me was not that I found glory, but happiness. A joy as deep and wide as an ocean. As he found in my mother.”

She turns on her side, dislodging much of Sigurd’s handiwork. Wildflowers cascade from her crown, leaves and petals catching on her bare skin or returning to the earth beneath her. She cradles his jaw with tender fingers, and when she speaks it is the barest whisper. Husky, low, strained.

“And my father? Tell me of him.”

“You have your father’s nose, and his eyes. He was a mountain of a man, as tall and broad as my father. Your height and build are his. Your hair is lighter than his was, but perhaps that is from so many hours spent in the sun. You have his stone arm, too. Heavy-handed swings that break and splinter. You are most like him. Noble, brave.” 

He hesitates at his next words, fearing to speak them - but her eyes remain on his face, pleading for more, and so he speaks. 

“He was as selfless as he was fearless. Unafraid to die in the pursuit of protecting those he loved. He was courageous, Eivor. He would have -  _ did _ \- sacrifice everything in the name of family. To the end, he thought only of you. Of your mother, and his clan. He had no interest in selfish pursuits, or self-preservation. He was willing to face the cold embrace of Helheim, that you might know the sun on your cheek and the wind against your skin.”

“I see that now,” she admits, her voice tight as she wrestles for control. “I was angry with him, all my life. I hated him for dying a coward, for denying himself Valhalla. For cursing my mother to walk the corpse hall alone, doomed to an eternity apart. Forsaking me, should I meet my own end. But when we returned to Norway, when we… found everything we once believed in to be a lie, I saw the error in my judgement. You were right, when you spoke to me of his sacrifice. His death bought us precious seconds, saved us. He is the reason we lie here now, remembering him.”

A tear slips from her eye, tracing a path down her temple to furrow into her hair.

“I wish I had more time with them,” she whispers fiercely. “I was young, foolish. A child. I never expected those final moments with them would be the last ones.”

“You could not have known,” he tells her gently. “If we knew everything that lay before us, we would lose all desire to live. To push on, and cherish what we have. It is no small thing, to have the courage to reach out into the unknown. To brave the unknown perils and hardships. To bear the pain of discovery.”

  
“It is for that reason I said yes to you,” she sighs. “I will not repeat the mistakes of my past. I am no child. Not anymore. I see what is before me, clear as rainwater. I see  _ you. _ And so I will weave flowers in my hair and write you poetry, and dance like a fool before all our clan to see. I will drink from our shared cup and go to bed as your wife rather than simply your lover. I will not waste a single moment, or hesitate, ever again. I mean to love you well and true, for as long as I have life. That is my oath.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've considered writing out a wedding scene for these two, and... I might, still. But I haven't been able to put myself in the right headspace to write such a thing. I've tried a few times but nothing seems .... right. If I do it, it needs to honor them. 
> 
> We all know there is DLC on the horizon. I'm terrified of what it will hold, honestly. But should it inspire, I may update this fic accordingly. Or fix the DLC, if Ubi ruins my life with it.
> 
> Stay subscribed if you'd like to see that. If not, it's okay. Thank you for reading this far, and for all the amazing support and love thrown my way. I am hyper-critical of my own craft, and most of the time I hate everything I write and see it as mediocre at best. I don't know why I'm like this. In IRL I'm an arrogant ass. I guess when it comes to art... and particularly when that art is part of such a frowned-upon ship... the ground beneath your feet feels a little shaky.
> 
> Stay safe and warm, little ravens. Until next time.


End file.
